


Garnet Inside Out

by Mr_Westing



Category: Inside Out (2015), Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternative Perspective, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-08-15 18:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8068753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_Westing/pseuds/Mr_Westing
Summary: Various episodes of Steven Universe, told from the perspective of Garnet's emotions.





	1. The Answer

**Author's Note:**

> The emotions of Gems are all characterized as female in this story, even Anger and Fear.

The control room of a Ruby’s mind was a sparse, but well-organized space. Its five emotions—Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear—sat at the controls, helping guide their host with precision and efficiency. Anger sat in the center seat of this particular one—Facet 3R6M Cut 2ES—ensuring she would act in such a way to satisfy her sole Island of Personality: Homeworld Island.

At this moment, this Ruby, plus two others, were accompanying a Sapphire to the planet Earth, where a rebellion was in its infancy.

“Can’t wait for those rebels to get here!” one of the other Ruby guards—Facet 4R6P Cut 2KN, whose gem was on her shoulder—was saying.

“Yeah!” the third Ruby said. “When I see those rebels, I'm gonna punch them right in their faces!”

“What are you saying? _I'm_ gonna punch them all over their bodies, and then it'll be over.” The two started fighting.

Inside the mind of Ruby 3R6M, Disgust rolled her eyes. “Do they really think they could beat them solo?”

“Right!” said Anger. “We’ll punch them together when we fuse.”

“That’s why they sent three of us,” Joy said smugly. Ruby repeated her emotions’ words.

“Three _this_!” One of the other Rubies punched 3R6M, sending her backwards.

“Gah!” Ruby’s anger said. “How dare—”

She was quickly shushed by Sadness. On screen, it was clear that she had accidentally bumped into the Sapphire, prompting a couple gasps from the rest of the court.

“This is bad!” Fear shouted. “What if we get punished for this? What if we’re shattered?”

“We have to apologize,” Sadness stammered. “We have to make she’s alright…”

Ruby extended her hand, but the Sapphire raised her hands to stop her. “It’s okay,” she said. “It was bound to happen.”

“Huh?” said Fear. “She’s not… upset?”

“And what does she mean that it was ‘bound to happen’?” asked Disgust. “Rubies aren’t always this careless… are they?”

“Hey,” said Joy, “At least we’re not in trouble.”

Ruby 3R6M, along with the others, nervously stood at attention.

“Now please wait here,” said the Sapphire. “I must attend to my duties.”

 

* * *

 

The five emotions of Sapphire’s mind never bickered over which one of them should take charge at a given time; while Sadness was nominally in charge, they all cooperated so that their Gem would stay cool and collected. This was helped by their future vision, which played constantly on screen next to what was happening in the present, so that they had time to compose their reactions ahead of time instead of getting caught off guard in the present.

Sapphire stood before her monarch. Her Fear ensured that showed the proper deference to her, the Gem who stood as the basis for her solitary Island of Personality: Blue Diamond.

“Sapphire,” said Blue Diamond. “Tell me what you see.”

The emotions watched the future vision feed. “Looks like the rebels will be attacking the Cloud Arena,” Sadness noted.

“Ugh,” said Disgust. “What’s so great about Earth that they want to stop us?”

“No idea,” said Anger. “But look! They’re destroying a bunch of Gems!”

“Only their physical forms,” said Joy.

“And one of them is us,” said Fear.

“Yeah! But they get defeated right afterwards!” said Joy.

“Settle down, everyone,” said Sadness. “We have to rely this to Blue Diamond in an orderly fashion.”

Sapphire did so, and Blue Diamond thanked her.

“This is a beautiful planet,” Joy remarked. “It’s a great place for a colony.”

“Shame we can’t stick around to see more of it,” said Sadness.

 

* * *

 

Ruby 3R6M remained outside the chamber until Sapphire returned. “What a beautiful place to build a colony,” she remarked. “I wish I could have seen more of this planet.”

Ruby’s emotions glanced at each other in confusion. “Uh… I don’t think she has any pressing business off planet,” said Fear.

“And Blue Diamond’s right here,” said Disgust. “If any Gem would have need of her services, it would be her.”

“Yeah,” said Joy. “There’s still time.”

“That is a nice thought,” said Sapphire, “but no.”

Before Ruby could process this, the gathering was interrupted by a loud shout.

“Blue Diamond, leave this planet! This colony will not be completed!” Two Gems, a Quartz soldier and a disconcertingly independent Pearl, emerged. “We are the Crystal Gems!” And they began their attack.

“Okay!” her Anger announced. “Time to fuse!” On screen, the three Rubies charged at the rebels, joining together as they ran: _fusion._

Whenever Ruby fused, the inside of the control room… changed. It was subtle, but it was still there. The whole room seemed to get bigger, with a better view of the rest of the mind through the back window and a larger rack to hold memories. During these times, Homeworld Island seemed to get a bit more complex, and the rack of memories held some that weren’t there before. Even the emotions themselves seemed to change; they got taller, but also slightly shifted in personality, though still defined by their namesake.

The Ruby fusion struck at the rebels—but was promptly split apart again. Two of her components were then slashed, forcing them to retreat into their gems, leaving 3R6M as the only one remaining. The Pearl then moved on to attack Sapphire.

“Thank you, Ruby,” Sapphire said. “You did your best.”

“What?” said Ruby’s Fear. “How can she be so calm when she’s in danger?”

“Wait… she has future vision, doesn’t she?” said Sadness. “She… she _knew_ this would happen! She _accepted_ it!”

“Yeah, but _we_ don’t have to accept it!” shouted Anger.

Ruby rushed towards Sapphire and… the control room changed. The window and memory rack became bigger, just like when she had fused with the other Rubies. But the emotions remained the same as before. Instead, there were now two of each.

“Gah!” shouted one of the Fears. “Who are you?”

“Who are _you_?” the other Fear returned.

“Uh, guys?” said one of the Disgusts. “Something’s up.”

She pointed at the screen. Somehow, despite being of two different types, Ruby and Sapphire had fused, resulting in a completely new Gem. The court stared aghast at the lanky, three-eyed, bicolored aberration that stood before them. The rebels took advantage of this distraction to take their leave.

“This isn’t good,” one of the Sadnesses said, “but we should remain calm. We just have to defuse...”

The other emotions, however, crowded around the control panel, desperately pressing buttons to try to get their components out of sync. Though disorderly, this at least worked, and Ruby and Sapphire, along with their emotions, soon found themselves back in their original bodies.

Blue Diamond was not happy. “The rebels have fled. Sapphire, this is not the scenario you described!”

“She’s right!” Sapphire’s Anger said. “That Pearl was supposed to destroy our physical form, but instead…”

“Instead we fused!” her Disgust said. “I didn’t even know that was possible with another type!”

“Is all fusion like that?” Joy wondered. “Because, except for the initial shock, and the strangeness of encountering another one of yourself… which, I guess, the more common Gems do all the time… it didn’t seem all that bad.”

“That’s not the point!” Fear shouted. “The point is, the events we saw in our vision didn’t come true! It was wrong!”

“And so the rebels got away!” Sadness added. “We failed! We failed Blue Diamond!”

“No!” shouted the unharmed Ruby. “It was me!”

“Clearly,” said Blue Diamond. “How dare you fuse with a member of my court?”

“Forgive me, I—” Ruby started, but she was quickly cut off.

“You will be broken for this!” Blue Diamond announced.

“What?” Sapphire’s Disgust cried. “That’s horrible!”

“She was just trying to protect us,” said Sadness. “That’s what she was told to do! And she’s going to be broken for it?”

“We are _not_ going to let that happen!” Anger said.

Sapphire grabbed Ruby’s hand and ran with her to the edge of the arena and leapt off, despite her bodyguard’s protests. Sapphire slowed their descent and they landed on the Earth, surrounded by large, rolling hills, untapped for their resources. It was unlikely that any of the other Gems would be able to find them too easily.

Ruby’s emotions weren’t happy about this. Not even Joy.

“What’d she go and do _that_ for?” Disgust groused.

“We have to get her back up there!” Fear exclaimed.

“Right!” said Joy. “Once we get back, everything will be okay…”

“They were going to break you,” said Sapphire.

“Well, mostly everything,” said Joy.

“Who cares?” shouted Anger. “There’s _tons_ of us! Dozens of Rubies able do the things we do, to serve Homeworld—which, I remind you, is our sole Island of Personality?”

“And it’s not like this place is that much better,” Sadness noted, looking at Ruby’s surroundings. There was no sign of civilization in sight, and water was falling from above.

“We’re lost, and alone, and Blue Diamond’s probably hunting for us… It’s terrible!” said Fear.

Anger groaned in frustration. “What exactly are we supposed to do?”

 

* * *

 

Back in Sapphire’s mind, her own emotions were discussing this very topic. “What are we going to do?” her Fear asked.

“Well, we certainly can’t go back to our Diamond,” said Disgust. “Not only would they break this Ruby, they would probably break Sapphire as well for what we did.”

“We could check our future vision,” said Joy.

“But our future vision’s no good anymore,” said Sadness. “If it was wrong about the outcome of the fight with the rebels, how can we know it won’t be wrong about other things?”

“You’re right!” said Fear. She rifled through the scenarios that appeared on screen, pressing buttons to send a wave of uncertainty for each one. “We can’t trust any of this! No… no… no…”

As a result of her Fear’s actions, Sapphire’s ice powers activated. Unlike her future vision, this skill was rarely called upon, and she had always been in complete control over it. But now, no longer confident that her actions would go how she foresaw them, she was scared to take any action, and so these powers unconsciously took action for her. Shards of ice grew around her feet, solidifying her to the ground.

This did not escape Ruby’s notice. “Ah!” Fear cried. “She’s freezing over!”

“She must feel as bad as we do,” said Sadness. “If not worse. She had so much status, but she threw it all away… because of us.”

“We need to get her someplace dry,” said Disgust. “Staying out in this sky-wetness isn’t helping either of us.”

Ruby lifted Sapphire up, breaking her free from the ice, and carried her to a cave. “Alright,” Ruby said, “this should be good for now.”

Sapphire parted her hair, revealing her single eye. “Thank you,” she said.

“Wow,” said Joy. “She’s cute.”

Ruby’s feet caught on fire.

“Hey!” Anger shouted. “What did you do? I thought _I_ controlled those powers!”

“I’m sorry!” said Joy, pulling her hands back from the console. “I don’t know what I did! Maybe I inadvertently triggered some sort of new, intense feeling that resulted in this fire? I don’t know.”

“Come on, guys,” Disgust said. “It’s not that big a deal. We can just laugh it off; be a bit embarrassed and be done with it.”

“And, of course, put the fire out so that Sapphire doesn’t get hurt,” added Fear. “And then we can focus on all the other things we have to worry about.”

And so, eventually, they did. So Ruby paced back and forth, fretting and saying, “It's my fault you're stranded here. How am I gonna save you?”

“You already did.”

“What?”

“You already saved me.”

“Yeah,” said Ruby’s Sadness. “I guess we did. But then she had to save us. And that’s what got us here.”

Ruby slumped onto the ground.

Inside Sapphire’s mind, her emotions noticed a conversational lull was forming. “Should we talk about something?” Fear asked.

“You mean, like, how we fused?” Sadness asked. “Is that what it’s always like?” The few memories from that period were upon the rack, the scenes within as clear as any other, but it felt like there was some unknown quality that distinguished them from Sapphire's solo memories.

“Is that a good idea?” Disgust wondered. “I mean, it was sort of… weird.”

“But not bad,” said Joy. “Not necessarily good, but not bad. The fusion itself, at least. And besides, do you have anything else we could talk about?”

Disgust shook her head.

“I've seen gems fuse before,” Sapphire said, “but I had no idea that's what it felt like. I always thought... I never realized that fusion... that'd you'd disappear like that.

“It's never like that!” Ruby exclaimed. “Whenever I've fused, it's always just been me, but bigger. I... I've never had a third eye before.”

“I've never had more than one! It was nice.”

Ruby blushed. “Yeah…”

 

* * *

 

The rain stopped the next day, and the two Gems took the opportunity to explore the planet, taking in its vistas and discovering the strange creatures that inhabited it. Along the way, they continued to talk about their accidental fusion with one another, and as the day went on, an unspoken desire to experience that again became clear. So in the evening, they danced with each other, and—

She was back. The fusion that had existed so very briefly the day before was back. One body, one mind, ten emotions around one console.

“This is… still a bit weird,” one of the Disgusts said.

“But also kind of fun,” said one the Joys.

“How will we be able to tell which emotion is from which Gem?” a Sadness asked.

“Does it really matter?” the other Joy said. “I mean, I assume we’re going to be sharing the console…”

“But it’ll get really confusing otherwise,” said one of the Angers. “Plus, considering our original Gems’ differing personalities, I’m sure that some of us would be able to respond in certain situations better than our counterpart…”

“Fair enough,” the Joy said. “Okay; all of Ruby’s emotions, sit to the left of Sapphire’s emotions. That should work.”

The emotions repositioned themselves, leaving the two Joys sitting in the center, ready to head the venture into this strange, wonderful experience.

But some of the other emotions still had reservations. “Are we really going to just abandon everything?” asked the Fear from Ruby’s mind, whom the other emotions soon learned to refer to as ‘Fear R’. “I mean, we still have Ruby’s Homeworld Island—but nothing to replace it.”

“Right,” said Sadness S. “Without being able to serve Homeworld or Blue Diamond, our Islands of Personality will get a bit… shabby.”

They were right; even now, the emotions could see out the window the two Islands, dulling in color, never to bit lit up when used again.

“Er, don’t worry,” said Joy R. “We’re bound to get a new Island sooner or later.”

“A new Island? Like what?” Anger R demanded.

“Like that!” Fear S said. A memory, glowing bright, appeared and rolled not to the shelf with the others, but to the center of the room. It was a core memory, the first new one either set of emotions had seen since their Gems had first emerged. With it, a new Island of Personality emerged. On it were three statues; at the base were Ruby and Sapphire, holding hands, and rising above them, their new fusion.

Garnet Island.

“Wait, Garnet Island?” Anger S asked. “Is that our name now?”

“I guess so,” said Disgust R. “But… who exactly _is_ Garnet? Is she simply a mashup of Ruby and Sapphire, or…”

“We have plenty of time to figure that out,” said Joy R.

The new fusion started adjusting to her body, evening out her balance, and experiencing this somewhat familiar but ultimately new sensation.

“I think we’re getting the hang of this,” Joy S said.

Then they fell.

Garnet tumbled down a hill, and when she opened her eyes, found herself at the end of a sword.

Fear R hit a button.

“Don’t hurt her!” Garnet yelled.

Fear S adjusted some levers.

“Don’t hurt… me?” she continued, somewhat uncertainly.

The swordbearer turned out to be the Pearl from the rebellion. “It’s you!” she said in surprise. “The fusion…”

“She must find us offensive, just the Gems back at the court,” Sadness S said.

“Maybe we should unfuse,” said Fear R. “She might go easy on us if we do.”

“No, no, please,” said another voice. Rose Quartz approached.

“So…” said Disgust S. “We don’t upset her?”

“Who cares about how I feel?” Rose said. “How _you_ feel is bound to be much more interesting.”

The emotions all looked at each other. “Well, lost,” said Sadness R.

“And scared,” Fear S added.

“And happy,” said Joy R.

“But also incredibly confused,” said Joy S. “I mean, why does this feel so right? Why does this seem so important, to the point of getting a new core memory, compared to what we were originally intended for?”

Rose Quartz laughed. “Welcome to Earth.”

“That’s not an answer!” Anger R shouted. “And there’s tons more questions besides!”

“Like how was Ruby able to alter fate?” Disgust S said.

“Or why was Sapphire willing to give up everything?” said Fear R.

Rose silenced Garnet. “No more questions. Don't _ever_ question this. You already _are_ the answer.”

And after a few days, the emotions in Garnet’s mind were able to realize what this answer was: _Love._


	2. Sugilite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off the episode "Coach Steven".

It had been over five thousand years since Ruby and Sapphire had first fused; over five thousand years since they had decided to exist as Garnet permanently. It was a bit frightening at first, for both the fusion and the residents of her mind, but the two parts of them worked together beautifully, and the whole was even greater than the sum of their parts.

The emotions quickly discovered that Ruby’s Sadness, for example, did not always have the same reaction to everything as Sapphire’s did, nor did Sapphire’s Anger always get upset by the same things as Ruby’s. So instead of having a mere five opinions as before, Garnet had ten, which allowed her to choose the very best way to react in a given situation. (Her future vision, though it wasn’t as strong or as accurate as Sapphire’s alone, certainly didn’t hurt.)

Just like how Ruby’s fire and Sapphire’s ice were melded together into Garnet’s powers of electricity, their individual personalities came together to create a balance between two extremes. Sapphire’s reserved, melancholy complacency was infused with Ruby’s passion, while Ruby’s fretful outbursts were tempered by Sapphire’s natural calm. The result was a Garnet who was confident and self-assured, able to create yellow, joyful memories simply by being.

Of course, when the two factions of emotions had strongly differing views on something, they reverted to their component Gems for a period of time before they could reconcile. But it also allowed them to overcome and adjust to tragedies more quickly. This was particularly comforting when Garnet had to deal with the majority of her comrades in the rebellion becoming corrupted by Homeworld, or when Rose Quartz, her leader, idol, and friend, gave up her physical form in order to give birth to the half-human hybrid Steven, who was currently panicking about the communication hub interfering with television.

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Sadness R commented as Steven attempted to topple over one of the pillars by hand.

“And that won’t work either,” said Disgust S, watching a bulked-up Amethyst as she started chipping her way through it. “Well, it would,” she clarified, observing the future vision section of the monitor, “but it would take _way_ too long.”

“So,” said Fear R, “what we need is some sort of strategy for dealing with—“

“Wait, I’ve got it!” Joy S exclaimed. “Sugilite!”

“Great idea!” Anger S said. “If we fuse with Amethyst, we’ll be done in _no_ time!”

Joy S ran over to the idea bulb basin. Neither she nor any other of Garnet’s emotions had used it before Ruby and Sapphire met—there was no call for them to come up with original thoughts, but instead simply follow the commands of their superiors—but it had come in handy since then, particular after Rose departed and left Garnet as the de facto leader of the team. Joy S grabbed the appropriate bulb and raced back to the console to insert it.

Once Garnet announced the plan, Amethyst and Steven reacted with suitable excitement: Amethyst over getting to fuse with Garnet, and Steven over getting to see another giant woman.

“Wait!” Pearl interjected. “Garnet, think about this. You and Amethyst can be a little... er… _unstable_ when your personalities combine. We need to be careful! Fuse with _me_ , instead.”

“She’s got a point,” said Sadness S. “Considering what’s happened with Sugilite in the past… Fears, what do you think?”

“Well, you know that we can’t really use our future vision to see what might happen if we fuse,” Fear S replied. “

“On the other hand,” Fear R said, “I don’t think there’s much to worry about in this situation. We just smash things and defuse right after. No danger of things getting out of control.”

“Yeah,” said Anger R. “We don’t need to be careful; we just need to be _huge_!”

“Plus, I think Pearl has a bit of an ulterior motive,” Disgust S commented wryly.

“Hey, who can blame her?” Disgust R said. “Sardonyx can be just as fun as Sugilite.”

“True,” said Joy R. “But for now, fusing with Amethyst is the right way to go.”

So the two lined up across from each other and began dancing, gyrating to an unheard groove. Eventually, Amethyst leapt towards Garnet and—

The large control room of Garnet’s mind became even bigger. Five more emotions—Amethyst’s Joy, Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Disgust—were seated at the console.

“Hey, guys!” Joy A yelled. “Been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“It really has,” said Joy S. “I kind of forgot just how good being Sugilite felt. We have a whole other island,” (this referred to Sugilite Island, which could be seen out the control room window), “five more friends to hand with, and a clear task of demolition to perform.”

“Yeah!” Anger A agreed. “This is going to be _great_!”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’m just going to take this opportunity to relax,” Sadness A said, hopping down from her seat. “It’s sort of exhausting having to regulate Amethyst’s anxieties all the time; but I’m sure you can handle this job without me.”

“No problem,” said Sadness R. “I don’t think we’ll need much sadness anyway.” She looked back at the screen. “Wow, Steven’s really excited, isn’t he?”

“Well, he’s never seen Sugilite before,” said Disgust S. “We should make sure we make a good impression.”

“Definitely,” said Joy R.

Sugilite summoned her weapon, a combination of Amethyst’s whip and Garnet’s gauntlets, to Steven’s delight. “You like that, little man?” she asked.

“Are you gonna smash stuff with your wrecking-ball thingy?” said Steven.

“That's the plan! Where should I start?”

“Do that one!” Steven said, pointing to a pillar. Sugilite complied.

“All right!” Anger A shouted as she viewed the destruction on screen. “The Sugilite party has officially started!”

“It _is_ satisfying to be able to wreck a bunch of stuff and not have it matter,” Joy S commented.

“Plus, when we’re this big,” Fear S said, “We don’t need to be so careful about getting hurt! It doesn’t even matter that our future vision is all but gone!”

This was true; the already-weakened power inherited from Sapphire had been further reduced to just some vague general intuitions about what might happen; generally, it made no difference whether Sugilite heeded them or not.

So Sugilite swung her flail, sending showers of debris raining down, caring not where they landed.

“You’re just too much!” Pearl said crossly.

Disgust R rolled her eyes. “Eh, she’s just jealous because she’s still so _little_.”

“Yeah!” Disgust A said, laughing.

So Sugilite continued her rampage.

 

* * *

 

After about an hour, all the pillars were destroyed. Sugilite turned to face the others, but they weren’t there.

“Hey, where’d they go?” asked Anger A.

“Didn’t Steven like us?” Sadness R wondered.

“Bah, _Pearl_ probably made him go home ‘cause she was too jealous,” Disgust R said.

“So Steven didn’t get to see the full show?”

“Hey, don’t worry,” said Joy A. “We can just warp back and show him our moves there.”

“Will we fit in the house like this?” said Fear S, but nobody paid attention to her. It didn’t matter anyway, since they found that the warp pad have been broken.

“Oh, _great_ ,” said Anger S. “They left us behind, and so now we have to walk _all the way home_.”

 

* * *

 

So the next day, Sugilite returned to the Temple beach from her trek across the sea and announced in a loud, clear voice, “I’m bored!”

“Yeah, walking across the ocean was no fun,” Sadness S remarked.

“Ugh, definitely,” Disgust A added. “Stuck in a fusion underwater… it’s a good thing it was just for a few hours, or else I might—”

“Hey, look! It’s the Gem that forced us to do that!” Anger A said as Pearl approached.

“Yeah!” Anger S said. “She left us behind!”

“We just thought you didn’t need any help,” Pearl said, somewhat obsequiously. “Now why don't you separate, and we can all sit down and relax?”

“How about… no!” Anger R slammed her fist down on the controls; onscreen, Suglite kicked Pearl away.

“Ha!” Joy A laughed. “Good show, Anger! High-five!”

The two emotions shared the high-five as the others seated at the console nodded approvingly. From behind them, Sadness A made as if to say something, but was too timid to actually do so.

“Listen to me!” Pearl said crossly. “You’ve been fused for too long! You’re losing yourselves!”

“Losing ourselves?” Joy S said, looking around at all of the emotions seated at the console. “Ha! This _is_ us! It’s great!”

“And being apart would _not_ be great,” Sadness R remarked.

“Yeah; I don’t want to get split up again,” Fear A said.

“So she’d better get used to us,” said Disgust R.

“She’d also better get that junk off the beach,” Disgust S added. She flicked a switch and Sugilite stomped on a bunch of gym equipment that was laying around for some reason.

Pearl strode up to her and summoned her spear.

“So, she wants to fight, huh?” Anger S asked rhetorically.

“You’ll thank me later!” Pearl cried as she leapt at Sugilite, moments before getting swatted back to the ground again. But she persevered and tried again, this time managing to knock off Sugilite’s shades.

“Hey!” Anger R shouted. “She knocked off our shades!”

“I bet she thinks she’s something,” said Disgust A said. “Well, I’ve got three words for her—”

“You! Ain’t! Nothing!” Sugilite said as she beat up on Pearl. This left her despairing, tattered and bruised, in the sand.

“All right!” Joy A exclaimed. “We sure showed _that_ weakling.”

But Steven shouted words of encouragement through a megaphone and Pearl staggered to her feet once more.

“WHAT?” Anger R yelled at the scream. “YOU WANT SOME MORE?”

“Anytime!” Pearl retorted. “You’re no match for me! Not even close!”

So the two Gems began to fight again, with Pearl eventually leading Sugilite up the hill and leaping off.

“She’s not going to get away that easily,” Joy S remarked smugly.

Sugilite swung her flail, intending to take down the pesky Pearl for good; but she, in turn, tossed her spear at Sugilite’s feet, causing the cliff to crumble and her to lose her balance.

“Oh no!” Fear R cried, scrambling with the controls. “We have to—” She stopped as Sugilite hit the ground and remained unharmed. “Oh. Never mind.”

“Is that all she’s got?” Joy S gloated.

“Yeah,” Anger A added. “It’ll take much more to beat—”

She was cut off as the flail came down after them and hit Sugilite on the head. The control room shook; the emotions from Ruby and Sapphire’s minds had barely enough time to cling to each to remain fused, while Amethyst’s emotions got sent back to their original body.

So Garnet lay on the beach. “Well… that was… not optimal,” Joy S said.

“We’re sorry,” said Sadness R. “Sadness S and I… we should have stepped in once things began to get out of hand.”

“Yeah, but the _rest_ of us are the ones who _let_ it get out of hand,” Anger R said.

“We were so wound up in being Sugilite, and having a good time with Amethyst’s emotions, we didn’t consider anyone else,” said Joy R.

“And we let Sugilite overwork our body,” Disgust S mentioned. “So now we have to lie here in pain.”

A worried-sick Pearl rushed over and hugged the two Gems before quickly realizing that they were in no condition to be hugged and letting them drop again.

“Like that,” Disgust S said.

“We should have listened to her,” Fear R said. “She was right.”

“Yeah,” Pearl said proudly. “I _was_ right.” And this, along with Steven’s continued motivations, filled her with confidence. “Come on! I feel great! Who’s up for a mission?”

“How long is she going to keep this up?” Amethyst groaned, perhaps inquiring of Garnet’s future vision.

Inside the control room, Sadness S shrugged. “Eh, we deserve it.”


	3. Fusion Cuisine

Steven and his friend, Connie, had been up on the second story loft watching television. Garnet was sitting on the couch, doing her favorite pastime—existing—when the raced downstairs.

“Garnet, quick,” said Steven, handing her the phone. “You have to pretend to be my mom to Connie’s mom!”

Inside Garnet’s mind, her emotions glanced at each other. They had no contingency plan for a situation like this.

“Pretend to be Steven’s mom?” Sadness R wondered aloud. “So… pretend to be Rose?”

“No, no,” Joy R said, shaking her head. “He must want Garnet to be like a regular, human mom. So she can be herself, but… a Mom Universe.”

So Garnet introduced herself that way. “Okay,” said a dubious woman’s voice over the phone. “You’re keeping an eye on your son and Connie, right?”

“We weren’t!” Fear R cried. “Not even a future vision one! Were we supposed to?”

“Calm down!” Joy S said. “We’ve already lied about being Steven’s mom; we can lie and say they were playing… what would they be playing?”

“Swords!” Fear S suggested.

“What?” the voice on the phone yelled.

“That’s grammatically incorrect, you idiot!” Disgust S groused. “We should have said they were playing _with_ swords!”

“But that could be dangerous,” Sadness S noted. “Without proper training, they could hurt themselves.”

“Right!” said Fear S. “So to make it plausible, we should say that they’re bleeding—no wait, _dead_ —”

“Oh, great job, everyone,” Disgust R said, obviously sarcastic. “This conversation’s going really well.”

“Connie’s mom sounds pretty upset,” Fear S said.

“Well, it’s her fault anyway!” Anger R said. “If she hadn’t called and asked about the children, we wouldn’t have had to tell her they were dead!”

“Right,” Anger S said. “Just get rid of her and tell her not to call again.”

Garnet hung up and handed the phone back. “Sorry, I panicked.”

 

* * *

 

A few days later, all the Gems, plus Greg, were gathered in the beach house. Connie’s parents had invited Steven and _his_ parents to dinner, so they had to decide which one of them was going to pose as his mother.

“Garnet,” Steven said, “you keep us safe by scaring off the bad guys, just like a mom would.”

“We are pretty good at that,” Joy R said.

“Just another part of keeping Steven and humanity safe,” Fear R said.

“But you’re not the best conversationalist,” Steven continued, moving on.

“Can’t exactly argue with that,” Disgust S said with a shrug.”

“And after what happened on the phone, it’d probably be best if we stayed away from impersonations,” Sadness S noted.

“Amethyst!” Steven said, moving on. “You would be a super fun mom!” He regarded her. “Can moms be gross?”

“If we want to make a good impression on Connie’s mother and father,” Fear S said, “Amethyst’s probably not a good choice.”

“Plus, she is, objectively, gross,” Disgust R noted.

“Pearl!” Steven said to the final Crystal Gem. “You're always worried about me, you teach me lots of stuff, you're approachable, and you're, like, totally _not_ gross.”

“When he puts it like that, she seems like the obvious choice,” Sadness R said.

“Except you can’t eat dinner,” Steven finished.

“Oh, right. That is a bit of an obstacle when attending dinner.”

“Come on, Pearl, suck it up!” Anger R shouted at the screen. “Can’t you endure a single meal?”

“Well, digestion _can_ be an odd sensation if you’re not used to it,” Disgust S said. “And as we’ve experienced firsthand, Pearl’s Disgust can be quite persnickety about such things.”

“And I’m not sure how comfortable she would be pretending to be Greg’s wife anyway,” Anger S added.

All the emotions murmured in agreement.

“Man, why did Connie have to say I have one mother instead of zero... or three?” Steven said sadly, walking over to sit by his dad on the couch.

“We’ll figure this thing out,” Greg said. “We just have to put our heads together.”

Steven’s eyes lit up. “Why didn't I think of this before? It's so obvious! You can all come to dinner—all three of you, fused into one!”

The Gems reacted appropriately.

“What?” said Pearl in disbelief.

“That’s insane,” said Amethyst.

The emotions inside didn’t take too kindly to the idea either.

“There have got to be at least a dozen reasons why that’s a bad idea,” Fear R said.

“And even if it wasn’t, I don’t want to use fusion for something so trivial,” Disgust S added.

“Fusion isn’t some trick for dinner parties,” Anger R said with conviction.

“I know,” Steven said sadly. “Then I guess this is it. I'll never get to see Connie again. Oh, Connie! I'll never know a star that shines as bright as you.”

Garnet’s emotions looked at each other. “We can’t let him lose his friend,” Fear S said.

“Fusion shouldn’t be done lightly,” said Sadness S, “but if it’s for a good cause…”

Joy R sighed. “We have no choice.”

 

* * *

 

And that’s how it came to be that the monstrous fusion of Alexandrite arrived at the (thankfully) outdoors restaurant carrying her “husband” and “son” on her shoulders.

“Okay, everyone,” Fear S said, addressing the various groups of emotions. “We have to be in perfect sync for the fusion to hold, so everyone: stay cool, calm, and collected. Don’t try to monopolize the controls; share them among the group.”

“Plus, that way, we can avoid any Sugilite-style outbursts,” Disgust P commented snidely.

“Oh, you just _had_ to bring that up, didn’t you?” Anger A said.

“Let it go, A; she’s got a point,” Anger S said. She turned to Disgust P. “But still, remarks like that are uncalled for. That goes for all of you,” she continued, directing this to all of Pearl’s emotions.

Alexandrite awkwardly sat herself at the table alongside Greg and Steven.

“Ooh!” said Joy A. “Breadsticks! Those look good.”

“Don’t,” Disgust P warned. “We might be fused, but Pearl’s body is still part of Alexandrite’s, and I’m not going to let any disgusting food enter it.”

“If we can’t eat anyway, why didn’t Pearl just come by herself?” Disgust A mumbled.

“We have to at least pretend to eat something,” said Fear S. “Otherwise Connie’s parents will get suspicious.”

“They’re not already suspicious?” Fear P asked sarcastically.

“Please!” Anger R said, addressing the Amethyst and Pearl factions of emotions. “Can’t you try to get along for five minutes? For Steven’s sake?”

They grudgingly complied, and a compromise was reached. Alexandrite grabbed a handful of breadsticks and stuffed them into her mouth, chewing but not actually swallowing.

“See, P?” Joy A said. “Isn’t that flavor sensation great? I mean, it’s not as fun as actually eating it, but mastication’s a good enough substitute for now, I guess.”

“I hope we don’t have to even chew for the rest of the night,” Sadness P said.

“So tell me,” said Mrs. Maheswaran, “how did you two meet?”

“Ack!” Fear A exclaimed. “We forgot to come up with a backstory! What should we say?”

“Don’t look at us,” Fear R said. “The last time we tried that, we told Connie’s mom her daughter was dead!”

Thankfully, Steven quickly interjected with the plausible lie that they had met at a roller coaster. “She was too tall to ride!” he explained.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Greg said, laughing nervously and placing a hand on Alexandrite’s thigh.

“Uh, no,” Disgust S said. “That’s crossing a line.”

A glare from Alexandrite communicated this to him. He apologetically removed his hand.

“I want to shove him,” Anger P said. “Anyone have any objections?”

The other emotions gave small utterances of conciliation; and so Greg’s head was shoved into his plate. “Have some more breadsticks, _dear_ ,” Alexandrite said icily.

“Uh, what is it that you two do for a living, Mr. and Mrs. Universe?” Mr. Maheswaran asked.

“Well, that’s simple,” Joy P said. “Greg owns a car wash, and as I understand it, human women typically forego careers in order to raise their offspring.”

“Well, that’s how it went for a long time,” Fear A said, “but I’m pretty sure that nowadays, even women with children have jobs. So we have to think up…”

“My mom works on an apple farm!” Steven said. “She uses all her arms to pick apples out of huge trees.”

“We really should have planned our masquerade better,” Sadness S said, “but it’s fortunate that Steven’s so good at coming up with things right on the spot.”

“Well, you know what they say,” Greg said. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

“Yeah!” Anger A shouted. “I _hate_ doctors!”

“Well, I’m a doctor,” Dr. Maheswaran said.

“Ooh,” Anger S said. “That may have been a bit of a misstep.”

The conversation hit an extended awkward silence, thanks in part to Connie leaving for the restroom and dragging Steven along to help her find it. They returned just as their food arrived.

 

* * *

 

Alexandrite picked up one of the popcorn shrimp from her plate with a fork and moved it towards her upper mouth. “Hey!” Disgust P shouted, pressing all her controls to send a wave of emotion to Alexandrite, causing her to turn her head away. “What are you doing?”

“Uh, putting food into Alexandrite’s mouth?” Sadness A said.

“I don’t think so,” Disgust P said.

“Right,” said Fear P. “The bread was bad enough. This shrimp? No way.”

“Well, I want it to go into Amethyst’s mouth!” Joy A said. “In fact, I want it to go into her belly! And since she’s currently sharing Alexandrite’s body, well, you had better get over your ridiculous phobia of food!”

“Yeah!” Anger A chimed in.

“We don’t even _need_ to eat!” Anger P shouted.

“Can’t you go without eating for a single night?” Sadness P asked.

“Can’t _you_ go without _not_ eating for a single night?” Anger A retorted.

“And can’t you _both_ go without _fighting_ for a single night?” a frustrated Anger S exclaimed.

“Everyone; calm down!” Fear R said. “These conflicting emotions are making the fusion too unstable!”

But it was too late; and while Ruby and Sapphire’s emotions managed to stay in sync, the others didn’t, leaving the figures of Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl on the ground.

“So they couldn’t get along and ruined everything,” Anger S said. “Well, now we have separate bodies again so we can do… this!”

Garnet summoned her gauntlets and hit them both on the head.

“What is going on here?” Dr. Maheswaran demanded. “Who are they?”

“I knew I should have trusted my bad feelings about this new friend of yours,” Mr. Maheswaran harshly told Connie, “but I never thought I wouldn't be able to trust my own daughter.”

As Connie ran off crying, with Steven following, the Maheswarans began to argue with the others, with Pearl and Amethyst going on the defensive while Greg just tried to smooth things over.

Garnet, for her part, stood there stoically. Her emotions, though, had no trouble expressing themselves inside her mind.

“This was a disaster,” Disgust S stated. “A complete and utter disaster.”

“Why can’t our future vision see what’ll happen with fusions?” Disgust R griped. “Then we could have foreseen that this wouldn’t work.”

“Um, speaking of future vision,” Fear S said, “I’m looking at it and… Steven and Connie are taking a bus out of town.”

“What? Oh no!” Fear R said. “We have to stop them!”

“We have to tell the others,” Sadness R corrected.

“The children have boarded a bus,” Garnet announced. “They intend to live elsewhere so they can hang out without needing parental permission.”

All the others responded in appropriate shock.

“They WHAT?” Greg shouted, glancing up at the bus stop to see that,

“Don’t they know how dangerous that could be?” Pearl fretted.

“Wait,” said Mr. Maheswaran. “How do you know what their motive was?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Dr. Maheswaran said. “We have to stop that bus! Quick, to the car; maybe we can catch them!”

“It doesn’t look like that will work,” Sadness R said, glancing at the future vision screen. “It’ll take too long to pull out of the parking lot; by the time we reach the road, they’ll be too far away.”

“So how can we stop them?” Joy S asked.

“We need longer legs.”

 

* * *

 

So all four sets of emotions once again occupied the same mind.

“Now, obviously this is much more important than just dinner or making a good impression on Connie’s parents,” Disgust S told the others, even as Alexandrite was already racing down the street. “So it’s _essential_ that we keep together—”

“There’s no worry about us breaking apart again,” Anger A said. “Not when we’re all focused on the same task.”

“Exactly,” said Anger P. “And that task is to _get Steven off that bus!_ ”

“And his friend,” Sadness P added.

“Right!” Anger P said.

Alexandrite caught up to the bus and lifted it up. In the control room, as Fear, Disgust, and Sadness assisted, all four Angers used the controls to express the same sentiment:

“You two, come out of that bus this instant!”

 

* * *

 

The two kids were quickly taken back to the restaurant, where they were berated by their guardians, including those from the once-again-defused Alexandrite.

“What were you thinking, running off with Connie like that?” Pearl said. “You could have gotten yourselves hurt!”

“Either physically or emotionally,” Sadness R said.

“He hasn’t matured enough to fully realize the possible consequences of rash decisions like that,” Sadness S added.

“It’s a relief that we retrieved him so quickly,” Joy S said. “But still, we need to reinforce this experience with negative feedback, so…”

“Steven,” Pearl said, “you are in very big trouble, and we have no choice but to punish you.”

“What should his punishment be?” Fear R asked.

“Well, dinner’s what caused all of this, so… no dinner for a thousand years?” Fear S suggested.

“One thousand?” Steven whimpered.

“We would never starve you,” Pearl said, vetoing Garnet’s ruling, “but you _will_ lose your TV privileges... for one thousand years.”

“Oh, right,” Fear S said. “He actually _needs_ to eat.”

“Odd that it’s Pearl who remembered that,” Disgust R commented.

“I think Steven would have preferred _our_ punishment,” Sadness R said, observing Steven’s anguish over not being able to watch the mid-season pre-finale of a show.

Still, the Gems’ firm discipline of their child seemed to earn the Maheswarans’ respect, with them both complimenting them on their technique.

“That ‘one thousand years of no dinner’ bit was pretty funny,” Mr. Maheswaran said to Garnet.

“Hear that?” Joy R told the Fears. “Connie’s dad thinks you’re funny!”

“But… we were being serious,” Fear R said.

Joy S shrugged. “All comedy’s derived from fear, I guess.”


	4. Future Vision

Gems don’t need to sleep; however, it is recommended that they take regular breaks from strenuous activity so that their energy has time to recharge. For Garnet and the other Crystal Gems, this rest period had come to correspond with Earth’s nighttime cycle, synchronizing with that of the diurnal child under their care.

“So,” Joy S said cheerfully, “what’s on the schedule for today?”

“Who knows?” Anger R said with a shrug. “Going on a mission, locating corrupted Gems, just hanging out—there’s not much we need to do at the moment.”

“Hold on,” said Fright R. “There’s something happening on our future vision.”

Indeed, the small part of the screen dedicated to that power inherited from Sapphire showed Steven tripping down the stairs and injuring himself.

“Well, we’d better stop that,” Joy S said.

And so they did; Garnet caught Steven right as he fell.

“Good morning to you, Steven,” Garnet said.

“Boy, I sure am lucky you showed up when you did,” said Steven.

Joy R smirked. “Luck’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Wait,” said Steven. “What do you mean by that?”

Disgust R dismissed this. “Eh, he shouldn’t worry about it.”

“I don’t know,” said Sadness S. “He seems pretty insistent.”

“Maybe,” said Fear R, “but I don’t think he can handle knowing that information.”

“Well, we should find out,” said Joy R. “Let’s use our future vision to see if we should tell Steven about future vision!”

Fear S shuffled through various scenarios. “Looks like there’s a strong possibility that Steven will become paranoid over all the possible harm that could befall him, resign himself to fate, and, in a horrible misjudgment, climb up onto the roof during a storm and get struck by lightning.”

“That… would not be good,” Sadness R commented.

“But look!” Joy R added. “There’s a chance that that _won’t_ happen and Garnet and Steven will become closer!”

“And that _would_ be good,” Joy S said.

“And I guess we’d be able to

“So…” said Disgust S. “Are we doing this?”

The emotions all nodded.

“Well,” Said Garnet, “I guess you could say that I have a sort of future vision. I'm able to see possible outcomes to most situations, which comes in handy since you seem to attract a lot of danger.”

Steven smirked. “Well, Danger _is_ my middle name.”

“That’s a lie,” Garnet said. “Your middle name is Cutie Pie.”

“Hey, Joy,” Anger S said crossly. “ _Ask_ before reaching across and using _our_ controls.”

“Sorry,” Joy R said with a grin. “But I saw the opportunity and I just had to take it.”

               

* * *

 

Garnet joined Steven on the beach for radio exercises. Though her body was an illusion, and thus couldn’t grow in either strength or flexibility, the rhythmic movements helped sharpen her focus and reflexes, helping ensure the two halves of her fusion-self stayed in sync.

Plus, as Joy S noted, it was a nice way to hang out with Steven.

After a healthy workout, Garnet smashed the stereo with her gauntlet.

“Er, did we really have to do that?” Sadness S said. “We could have just turned it off and used it later.”

Anger S shrugged. “Hey, we needed it to stop playing. That was the easiest way to do it.”

“Garnet, what are my breakfast possibilities?” Steven asked.

Disgust R rolled her eyes. “This is how it’s gonna be, isn’t it? Steven asking us to use future vision for the most mundane, inconsequential decisions.”

“Well, we don’t even _need_ future vision for this,” said Disgust S. “Since he’s already outside, he’ll probably go to the Big Donut.”

Steven was impressed by the prediction nonetheless. “Um…” he said, “do you see any possible futures where you… um… come with me and have a great time?”

“Well, we don’t really need to eat,” Disgust S noted.

“Maybe,” said Joy R, “But how could we say ‘No’ to that face?”

“ _I_ could,” Anger R said. Disgust S slapped her on the back of the head. “Hey, I didn’t say I _would_ , I said I _could_.”

 

* * *

 

“So,” said Steven as they entered the Big Donut, “what would happen if I said ‘Hi’ to Sadie?”

Joy R shuffled through various scenarios with the future vision. “Looks like almost every one of these has her saying ‘Hi’ back. Some have her saying ‘Hello’, but it’s mostly just ‘Hi’.”

Garnet informed Steven of this, and so he went ahead and say ‘Hi’, and as the future vision predicted, Sadie responded in turn. “That was an easy one,” Steven said. “What would happen if I said ‘Hi’ to my BFF Lars?” He pointed at the teenager who was filling up a coffee pot.

“Ooh!” said Joy R. “An outcome where Lars gives Steven a high-five! He would love that.”

“That’s only one result out of many,” Sadness R noted.

“And there are two other, separate scenarios where Steven winds up with third-degree burns all over his body,” Fear S added.

Of course, Steven only paid attention to the more optimistic option and went to greet Lars, who became startled and sent the coffee pot, and its contents, flying in Steven’s direction.

“I know it technically wasn’t inevitable,” said Sadness R, “but, you know… Murphy’s Law.”

“Forget that!” said Anger R. “Steven’s in trouble!”

So Garnet rushed in between Steven and the coffee, taking the brunt of the scalding liquid in his stead.

“Are you okay?” Lars asked. “That coffee was really hot!”

“Ha!” Anger R exclaimed. “Garnet drinks coffee for breakfast!”

“That boast doesn’t work for several reasons,” Disgust R said.

“Quiet.”

 

* * *

 

After the Big Donut, they headed to the fry stand. “You know exactly what I want,” Steven said to Peedee. He turned to Garnet. “Any possible futures where I’m hurt by this?”

Fear R glanced through the endless scenarios on the screen. “Looks likes there’s _tons_ ,” she remarked.

“But those all depend on a set of very unlikely circumstances and extremely poor decisions on his part,” said Joy S.

“Right,” said Sadness R. “Shouldn’t we make sure he understands that future vision can never be completely accurate, so these things might not happen?”

“But he didn’t ask what _would_ happen, he asked what could _possibly_ happen,” Anger S said. “He could choke to death, or get so distracted he falls down a manhole, or get food poisoning, or be bullied by wasps…”

“I don’t see any of that,” said Fear R.

“Oh, I wasn’t using the future vision. I was just listing a bunch of ways he could get hurt by this. Which is what he asked for—no future vision required.”

“What if I stand perfectly still?” Steven asked nervously.

“He’d probably get a really bad sunburn,” Disgust S said.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Joy S said, nodding.

 

* * *

 

By lunchtime, they were back at the beach house. Steven was at the counter, making a sandwich. He was also wearing a helmet.

“Steven,” Garnet said, approaching. Steven gave a yelp of surprise.

“He’s in pretty bad shape,” Sadness S commented. “He’s gotten pretty paranoid. He’s wearing a helmet to make a sandwich.”

“But we shouldn’t confront him about that directly,” said Sadness R. “We have to use tact.”

“Nice helmet,” Garnet noted.

“Yeah,” Steven said, chuckling nervously. “You never know when you’re gonna ride a bike.”

“And you’re making a sandwich.”

“Yeah,” said Steven. “Just got to pick up the knife and spread the mayonnaise.”

But, even though it was merely plastic, he couldn’t bring himself to touch the instrument, worried about the unforeseen harm that the blade could cause.

“Wow, he’s a wreck,” said Sadness S.

“Right—forget tact,” Fear R said. “We’ve got to address this head-on.”

“Wait, wait!” Steven cried. “I’ve got it!”

He picked up the jar and turned it over his sandwich, sending its entire contents spilling out over the bread.

“ _That_ will kill him faster,” Disgust R said with a smirk. Both Joys giggled at this remark.

“Not funny!” Steven said.

“Tactfully or directly, we still have to be sympathetic,” said Sadness S.

“Right,” said Sadness R. “So… how _should_ we approach this?”

Before any of Garnet’s emotions could think of something, her conversation was interrupted by Amethyst. “Nice noggin, Steven!” she said as she traipsed across the room to the warp pad, where Pearl was standing.

“We’re ready, Garnet!” Pearl called out.

“Wait, you’re going on a mission?” Steven asked. He clung to Garnet’s arm. “Hold on! Don’t leave me! At least tell me what happens with my lunch! Do I choke on a pickle?”

Disgust S scrolled through the scenarios. “Hmm… well, he doesn’t _choke_ on any pickles…”

“That means something else happens with the pickle!”

“Oh, _come on_ ,” said Anger R. “Garnet can’t be with Steven _all_ the time. This mission _alone_ will take a few hours at least.”

“And we’ve left him on his own before plenty of times, and he was fine,” Anger S added.

“Maybe,” said Sadness S, “but now he’s become paranoid about his safety.”

“And he’s on a fast track to getting struck by lightning,” said Fear S, glancing at the future vision.

“We have to reassure him that he’s in control,” said Sadness R.

“Oh, and make sure he doesn’t go on the roof,” said Anger S. “No matter what.”

 

* * *

 

The mission, as envisioned, was a bit lengthy, but fighting corrupted Gems like these ones was second nature to Garnet at this point. Along with the help of Pearl and Amethyst, this made the battle trivially simple for her. This allowed her to reflect upon the day’s events and Steven’s behavior.

“Maybe telling Steven about future vision _was_ a bad idea,” said Sadness S. “I mean, we knew there was a risk that this might happen, but we did it anyway.”

“Because it might make him closer to Garnet,” said Joy R. “But I guess it’s driving a wedge between them.”

“Bitter irony, that,” said Disgust R.

“Also ironic,” said Disgust S, “is how we’ve always used future vision to _protect_ Steven, but now it’s harming him.”

“Except this isn’t the first time that happened,” said Sadness R. “Remember?”

She pulled up a series of memories from the time Steven took the Gems to the arcade. He introduced her to Meat Beat Mania, a game which, thanks to her future vision, she excelled at. It preoccupied her for hours; the emotions had been enraptured by the thrill of shaking the meat in rhythm with the beat, shutting out the sensations of everything else. It was only when Steven destroyed the machine that they realized that the drill-like Gem creatures that they had neglected to finish off earlier had begun attacking Beach City.

Sadness S sighed. “Sometimes, it seems like future vision is too much trouble. Maybe it would be better if we didn’t have that insight, having to face the future blindly like everyone else.”

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Anger R said. “Future vision’s come in handy plenty of times! You can’t write it off completely just because of a few incidents. We just have to use these setbacks to learn how to use the abilities we have at our disposal better—just like everyone else has to learn how to use their own abilities. Besides, it’s not like we can just get rid of it. It’s part of Garnet.”

“Yeah,” Sadness S said, smiling. “I guess you’re right.”

“Um, guys?” Fear R said, directing the emotions’ attention to the future vision screen. “There’s, like, a hundred-percent chance that Steven’s going to get struck by lightning unless we go back intervene almost immediately.”

“What?” said Anger S. “We told him to stay off the roof!”

“And _apparently_ , telling him that is what _made_ him go on the roof in the first place,” said Disgust R.

“Yeah, but he should have listened to us anyway!”

 

* * *

 

And so Garnet found herself standing just outside the beach house in the rain, yelling at Steven to get off the roof. “Get off the roof!” she yelled.

“Get off the roof!” Anger S yelled at the viewscreen. But she and her Ruby counterpart weren’t the only ones taking control of the console; the Sadnesses and Fears were also exerting their influence, concerned about what Steven’s fate might be. The two Joys watched on with apprehension, while the Disgusts looked at each other, silently noting, with guilt, that all of them shared some responsibility for this situation.

“Everything I do shoves me violently towards the end!” Steven yelled back. “The more I know, the more I know that I don't know! I can't live like this! Why did you tell me about future vision? What's going to happen to me on the roof?”

The emotions glanced at each other, and the bulk of them retreated, leaving Sadness S and Sadness R at the helm.

“This,” Garnet said.

“We took a risk at his expense,” Sadness S said. “We knew he might do this, but we told him about our vision anyway.”

“We can see so many things that can hurt him,” Sadness R said. “We should have never let one of them be us.”

“There are millions of possibilities for the future,” Garnet said, “but it’s up to you to choose which becomes reality.”

The Sadnesses, plus the rest of the emotions, watched the screen intently. “Please understand,” Sadness S whispered.

“I guess I can’t really see a future for myself up here,” Steven said. He climbed off the roof and hugged Garnet.

“See?” said Joy R. “Telling him about future vision brought us closer together!”

“Whatever,” said Disgust R. “Just don’t forget to divert the lightning strike.”

 

* * *

 

Minutes later, Garnet and Steven were back inside and drying off.

“So,” said Joy R, “now that Steven knows about Garnet’s future… maybe we should tell him about her _other_ secret?”

“What other secret?” Joy S asked, confused.

Joy R frowned. “You know, that she’s made up of Ruby and Sapphire?”

Joy S laughed, embarrassed. “Oh, right. _That_. It’s just that we’ve been like this for so long, I’ve stopped thinking of myself as Sapphire’s Joy but instead just one of Garnet’s Joys.”

“That’s understandable,” Joy R said, smiling. “But seriously; should we tell Steven?”

“Not now, I don’t think,” Sadness S said. “We need time for him to settle down before we give him any more surprises.”

“And it should be a special occasion,” Disgust R said. “How about his birthday?”

Joy R nodded. “Sounds good. We’ll tell him on his birthday.”


	5. Jail Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Includes part of "The Return".

Garnet stood on the store. Next to her, Opal was firing arrows of energy up at the green, hand-shaped Homeworld ship that was looming overhead. But these attacks were blocked easily, and no damage seemed to happen.

Inside Garnet’s mind control room, the emotions sat and watched in apprehension. “There’s no stopping them,” Fear R said. “They’re going to land, and then they’ll either destroy our gems or use another corruption bomb. We’ll be goners either way.”

“Yeah,” Sadness S sighed. “We’re doomed.”

“Hey,” Joy R said, trying to interject a little optimism among the group. “At least Steven’s safe.”

“Hey, guys!” Steven shouted, running up to them. The Crystal Gems were shocked; Opal defused into Pearl and Amethyst.

“He was supposed to be out of town,” Fear R said. “Why’d he come back?”

“Why doesn’t he ever do as he’s told?” Anger R grouched.

“This isn’t the time, R!” Disgust S said.

“He has to go back, before the ship arrives!” Fear S said.

“It’s too late!” Fear R cried. “We’ll just have to protect him.”

The ship landed, and its occupants emerged. There was Peridot, the technician who they had made their presence known to; Lapis Lazuli, who had warned the Crystal Gems of the Homeworld’s arrival, and had apparently been taken as a captive; and a new, unknown Gem, orange and brawny, called, like the others, by her gem’s namesake: Jasper.

“Looks like another waste of my time,” Jasper said.

“So what are we going to do?” Fear R asked, looking to the others. “Fight her?”

Fear S shook her head. “Not immediately. Not with an opponent whose strategy we know nothing about, and not when Steven could be so easily caught in the fray…”

“True,” said Disgust R. “But counterpoint: we must remain firm and stand up to her.”

“Precisely what I was thinking,” Anger S said.

“You need to leave immediately!” Garnet shouted.

“There is no way she’s going to actually listen to us,” Sadness S said.

“Probably not,” Anger S said, “but there’s no way we’re going to just let Homeworld reclaim this planet.”

But Sadness S was right, and Jasper paid them no attention, instead remarking how she had been looking forward to fighting Rose Quartz.

“But this is all that’s left of her army?” she said. “Some lost, defective Pearl, a puny overcooked runt, and _this_ shameless display?” This last comment was in regards to Garnet and her permafusion status.

“Shameless?” Disgust S said. “No one insults Garnet like that!”

“She _definitely_ needs to leave,” Anger R added.

“Settle down, everyone,” Fear S said. “Remember, we shouldn’t engage her physically unless it’s necessary…”

“What is that?” Jasper asked, noticing Steven.

“Like now, for instance?” Anger R said.

“Well, we should be prepared to protect Steven at the very least,” Fear S replied.

Fortunately, Jasper took no notice in the human-looking hybrid; unfortunately, she decided just to blast the entire group with the ship.

“We have to make Steven go away!” Fear R said. “We can’t let him risk his life!”

“But this is my home!” Steven shouted. “And you’re all my family! I’m a Crystal Gem too!”

“Oh, Steven,” Sadness S said. “You sweet, wonderful, lovable moron.”

Steven jumped in front of the others, blocking the blast with the shield he had just summoned.

“He did it,” Joy R said, staring awestruck at the screen. “He saved us!”

“And also drew attention to himself,” Fear S noted.

Jasper had Peridot fire another, smaller beam, designed to separate Steven from his guardians. Garnet grabbed him and tried to leap out of the way, but lost hold of him; he landed in front of the Homeworld posse.

“Rose, why do you look like that? Why are you so weak?” Jasper said. “Yellow Diamond needs to see this… _thing_.”

“Not if we can help it!” Anger R shouted.

Garnet lunged at Jasper, who summoned her weapon—a helmet—and repelled her. She then pulled out a device and, when Garnet came at her again, thrust it into her chest.

A bolt of energy shot through the control room, making it unstable; her emotions tried to hold onto each other, but they couldn’t keep their grasps. Eventually, their connection was broken and the lights went out. When the emergency lights turned on, the big screen displayed a progress bar for a reboot, and Ruby’s five emotions found themselves alone.

“What happened?” Fear R asked. “Where’s Sapphire’s emotions?”

“We must have been forced back into our own gems,” Sadness R said. “We defused in the process.”

“We have to reform!” Anger R said.

“You know we have to wait a bit for that,” Fear R replied. “If we do it too quickly, Ruby’s physical form would be too wonky; that wouldn’t help anyone.”

“Unfortunately, she’s right,” Sadness R said. “But still, we should do it as soon as we can.”

So a few minutes later, Ruby’s physical body emerged from her gem; she found herself in a cell on the Homeworld ship, a yellow field between her and her captor.

“I see you’ve reformed,” Jasper said.

Anger R snarled. “Garnet’s gonna make _you_ reform!” she shouted. “Or Ruby will! Whatever!”

She slammed on her controls, sending a wave of emotion to their host that made Ruby make as if to charge at the Quartz soldier.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Jasper warned. “This field acts as a milder version of the destabilizer I used on you before. If you make contact, you’ll be zapped with a wave of energy that can scramble parts of your physical form. Linger too long, and you’ll be forced back into your gem. So you can’t escape; and no one can get in to rescue you, either.”

“Where’s Sapphire?” Ruby demanded.

“In another cell, far away from this one,” Jasper smugly explained. “Wouldn’t want you to do anything indecent. All your friends are in cells like this, in fact. Even Rose. So don’t get your hopes up for being rescued.”

So she walked away, leaving Ruby alone in her cell.

In her mind’s control room, her emotions were debating over which ones should use the controls.

“Well, obviously, this is a highly dangerous situation,” Fear R said. “So Ruby should be constantly on edge about her surroundings.”

“But it’s also so… so _frustrating_ being defused!” Anger R said. “That’s the way she should feel!”

“I vote for despair,” Sadness R suggested.

“Come on, guys,” Joy R said. “

“But Jasper said not to get our hopes up,” Sadness R said.

“Well, yeah, but… if we were still fused with Sapphire, what would her emotions do?”

“If we were still fused with Sapphire,” Disgust R said, “we wouldn’t have to wonder what they would do.”

“That’s not what I… oh, whatever,” Joy sighed, slumping down in her seat. “Do what you want. I’ll just wait until there’s a reason for me to actually do something.”

And so Ruby sat in her cell as the ship took off, sobbing, until a few minutes later…

“Um, hello?” said a voice.

“Gah!” Fear R exclaimed, startled. “Who’s that? Another soldier?”

“No, it’s just Steven,” Disgust R said. “Which means he’s seen us solo, without Sapphire.”

“Oh, _great!_ ” Anger R shouted. “This is just _perfect_! On top of everything else, the surprise we had for Steven’s birthday is _ruined!_ ”

“Uh, do you need any help?” Steven asked.

“No we don’t!” Anger R said. “Well, we _do,_ but he can’t help, and he’s ruined his own birthday _anyway_ , so…”

“Calm down, Anger,” Sadness R said. “He was just offering to help. And he didn’t know that we had planned something for his birthday…”

“Hey, wait,” said Fear R. “How’d he get past the field?”

“Oh yeah!” Joy R said. “

“Oh,” said Steven. “I just kind of…” He reached his hand towards it.

“What? No!” Fear R cried. “We can’t let him get hurt!”

But Steven’s arm passed through easily, and, beyond a few of his veins glowing, seemed unaffected by it.

“Wait,” Fear R said. “It’s… okay?”

“Do you think it’ll be safe for Ruby as well?” Joy R asked.

“I don’t know; we should test it out.”

But when Ruby tried it, it worked just how Jasper said.

“You idiot!” Anger R shouted at Fear. “Your job is to _prevent_ harm to Ruby, not cause it with ‘tests’!”

“Sorry!” Fear R responded. “It’s just that I usually have a second opinion _and_ a catalogue of possibilities to help me!”

“I suppose this is one time where Steven’s half-human biology is an asset rather than a hindrance,” Disgust R remarked.

“Quiet, quiet!” Sadness R said. The sounds of singing had reached Ruby’s ears. “Sapphire.”

“This!” Joy R said. “This is a reason for joy! Steven can help us escape, then we can find her and be reunited…”

“But we’re not reunited yet,” Sadness R pointed out. “And in the meantime, she’s just as alone as Ruby is…”

“Excellent point, Sadness,” Fear R said. “So we _have_ to get to her… quickly!”

Steven made a path so Ruby could safely enter through, and she sped past, barely giving him enough time to keep up.

“This ship’s too large,” Sadness R said. “How will we ever be able to find her?”

“We could check our future vision to see what we’d encounter if we went down various hallways,” Joy R suggested.

“Except that power comes from _Sapphire’s_ gem,” Disgust R said. “We don’t have it on our own.”

Ruby listened closely, trying to find where the singing was coming from. “This way!” she said, leading Steven down one of the hallways.

“How many more Gems are trapped here?” Steven asked.

“How would we know that?” Disgust R said. “And why would we care?”

“Well, if there are any prisoners from Homeworld,” Sadness R said, “it would be nice to rescue them. They might even become allies, helping us protect Earth…”

“We’d be able to do that better as Garnet,” Anger R said. “And freeing Sapphire should be our first priority anyway.”

“I don’t think they’d have too many prisoners on this ship anyway,” Fear R added. He paused, listening. “…the singing stopped. Why has the singing stopped?”

“This is why finding her had to be our highest priority!” Anger shouted.

Ruby and Steven continued down the corridors until they came to another cell that held a Gem.

“Look!” Joy R said. “Could it be?”

It was Lapis Lazuli.

“Oh,” said Disgust R. “It’s just _her_.”

“So, she’s not here,” Fear R said. “But then where is she?”

“Maybe Lapis would know?” Sadness R suggested. “Though I don’t know if she’d tell us… she seems to think that it’d be best to just wait compliantly in our cells…”

“We don’t have time for this!” Anger R cried. “We have to find Sapphire!”

So Ruby ran off, leaving Steven behind.

* * *

 

In her own cell, Sapphire sang. She could not pass through the destabilizing barrier; there had never been a need to hone her ice powers for practical use, so those were out, and they would have likely proved ineffective anyway; and she knew from experience that in such an unfamiliar situation like this, the future was truly unpredictable, and that nothing she could do on her own would affect it in any way. So all she could do was send a signal to her love, her other half, her Ruby. All she could do was sing.

“Stop singing!” Jasper demanded.

“I don’t like her,” Anger S grumbled.

“But why _are_ we singing?” Sadness S asked. “Even if the others can hear us, they’re all trapped in their own cells. How could they possibly rescue us?”

“I don’t know, but that’s not the point,” Joy S said. “We have to keep singing anyway; we mustn’t give up hope.”

“Plus, our singing’s annoying Jasper, and that’s a good enough reason for me,” Disgust S said.

So Sapphire kept singing.

“Hey, I liked your song.”

Peering into the cell was Steven.

“Steven?” Fear S asked in surprise. “How did he escape?”

Steven stuck his hand into the barrier, blocking out a hole that Sapphire could exit through.

“Of course,” said Disgust S. “He’s half-human… this technology only accounts for Gems’ physiologies.”

Sapphire went through, and thanked Steven. And then, she heard someone calling her name.

“Oh no!” Sadness S cried. “It’s Ruby!”

“You mean, oh yes!” Joy S said. “We’re going to be united again!”

“Well, yes, but she might be hurt, or scared, or…”

“Then let’s get going so we can help her!” Anger S snapped. “Grab the kid, fire up the future vision, and let’s go!”

And Sapphire did, zooming through the corridors of the ship until she located her other half. They ran to each other and embraced.

“Did they hurt her?” Fear R asked aloud in Ruby’s mind.

“No, I’m okay,” Sapphire said, replying to Ruby’s question. “Did they hurt you?”

“Who cares?” Joy R said, laughing.

“I do!”

They kissed, and hugged, and spun around—and once again, they were of one mind and body. Garnet.

The emotions greeted their counterparts, excited for their reunion. Outside, Steven was also excited, but for a different reason.

“Garnet! You’re a fusion?”

“Oh right, he didn’t know,” Disgust S said.

“It’s a shame he had to find out like this,” Sadness R added.

“Did I make a good first impression?” Steven asked.

“Ah, that’s sweet,” Joy R said.

“Though there was no need for him to worry,” Joy S said, glancing behind to the window that looked over the Islands of Personality; one of the newest was Steven Island, the replacement for Rose Island, and a monument to their relationship with the child. “We already love him.”

These tender moments, however, were interrupted when they heard Jasper approaching; so Garnet gave Steven a kiss of future vision and instructions to find Pearl and Amethyst, then get to the bridge to take control of the ship, while she stayed behind to fight.

“Are you gonna be able to beat her on your own?” Steven asked.

Inside her mind, the two factions of emotions smiled at each other.

“It’s okay, Steven,” Garnet said. “I’m never alone.”

So Steven fled, and Jasper arrived.

“Oh great, you're both out?” the Quartz soldier said. “And you're fused again? Why? Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak Gems stronger. Quit embarrassing yourselves!”

“Embarrassing ourselves?” Disgust R said. “I don’t _feel_ embarrassed. Do you, Sapphy?”

“Nope,” Disgust S said.

“She’s just trying to make us mad,” Anger S said. “But the joke’s on her; I’m _always_ mad!”

“And if we work as a team,” Sadness R said, “we won’t let any emotions overwhelm Garnet. She’ll be able to win easily.”

Joy R cracked her knuckles. “Let’s do this.”

* * *

 

The fusion of Ruby and Sapphire was an even match against Jasper. Yes, Garnet got knocked around a bit, but it didn’t matter; she was herself, and she was happy. And, in the end, the two fought their way to the engine room, where Garnet tossed Jasper into the ship’s power supply, making the craft begin to fall.

“Booyah!” Joy S exclaimed. “High-fives all around!”

“How about later?” Fear R said. “We’ve got to get the others off this ship first.”

“Exactly,” Fear S added. She looked at the future vision screen. “Steven’s freed Pearl and Amethyst, and they’ve subdued Peridot and set a course back to the surface; we should be able to survive if we act quickly and wisely.”

“What about Lapis?” Sadness R asked. “She’s still in her cell… should we try and rescue her?”

Sadness S looked at the future vision and shook her head. “Sorry, but there’s no time. Only Steven can breach her energy field, and by the time we reach the bridge and get back there…”

Indeed, when Garnet rejoined the others, less than a minute passed before the ship crashed into the side of the temple and exploded. They were saved from any harm, however, by Steven’s bubble.

“Wow. This is like, the third time he’s saved us in less than two hours?” Joy R said.

“I’m so proud,” Joy S said, wiping away tears of happiness.

“Oh my gosh,” said Steven to Garnet. “I can’t believe you’re a fusion all the time!”

“I’m still peeved that his birthday surprise got spoiled,” Anger R grumbled.

“Well, it’s annoying,” Anger S said, “but I wouldn’t say it’s something to get too worked up about.”

The bonding moment between Garnet and Steven was once again interrupted by Jasper, who emerged from the rubble and staggered towards them.

“Well, _that’s_ something to get worked up about!” Fear R said.

“Whatever,” Joy R said. “We too her on once, we can do it again.”

“Maybe,” Sadness S said, “but Garnet’s body’s still a bit tired from the fight, and though Steven’s proven himself immensely, he’s still untrained in combat situations…”

“Don’t think you’ve won,” Jasper growled. “You only beat me 'cause you're a fusion! If I had someone to fuse with I'd—”

She stopped as Lapis came out from beneath the wreckage; she tried to escape, but Jasper grabbed her and, as the others watched in horror, made her fuse. A giant, green, four-eyed monstrosity was formed, laughing menacingly. A column of water rose out of the ocean; but instead of attacking the Crystal Gems, it wrapped around her own arm and began dragging her into the water.

“What are you doing?” the fusion screamed; and it answered her own question: “I'm done being everyone's prisoner. Now you're my prisoner! And I'm never letting you go!”

And they disappeared beneath the waves.

“Yikes,” said Disgust S. “Those two are _really_ bad for each other.”


	6. Love Letters

Garnet was walking along the bottom of the ocean, searching for any signs of Lapis and/or Jasper—or at the very least, their fusion. However, no signs were in sight, and so the emotions in her mind were getting restless.

“Seriously, were are they?” Anger R grumbled. “The ocean’s not _that_ big.”

“I’m pretty sure the ocean is, indeed, that big,” Disgust S noted. “But I concur; this is taking much longer than expected.”

“And with so many possibilities of where they _might_ be, future vision is pretty much useless,” Fear S added.

“But we can’t give up,” Fear R said. “A volatile fusion like that—it could be dangerous if left unchecked.”

“Plus, Steven’s worried about Lapis,” Sadness R said. “Even if she’s the primary one holding the fusion together, doing so is bound to be a mentally taxing experience. They need to be separated from each other so we can contain them in a more manageable way.”

“True; but we can’t spend all our time searching,” Sadness S said. “Not even Garnet can sustain that level of energy for so long. Besides, if one of our reasons for rescuing Lapis is to placate Steven, it doesn’t make sense to abandon him entirely. We have to return periodically to rest and to assure Steven that an effort is being made.”

All the emotions agreed that this made sense; so Garnet returned to the shore. When she emerged, Steven and Connie were on the beach. The mailman—Garnet never received any mail, so she didn’t know his name—was with them.

“Ah, there’s Steven and his friend,” Joy R said. “And another human I know nothing about.”

“It’s funny,” Joy S said. “One would think we just wasted half a day wandering the sea and producing no results, but I take one look at Steven being happy and I don’t care.”

“Howdy,” Garnet said.

“Watcha up to, Garnet?” Steven asked.

“I was just at the bottom of the ocean checking for signs of Lapis and Jasper.”

“Any luck?”

“Nope!” Garnet said happily.

“Wow,” the mailman said. “How are you able to swim to the bottom of the ocean?”

Joy R laughed. “That’s easy,” she said. “Garnet’s a _really_ good swimmer.”

“We’d better dry off and get back inside,” Disgust S said.

So they did so.

 

* * *

 

Garnet was just about to head out and search the ocean floor again when Steven and Connie rushed in.

“Garnet!” Steven yelled. “The most unbelievable thing just happened! You’ll absolutely _die_ of shock!”

Disgust R sighed. “I know Steven’s the basis for one of our Islands of Personality and all, but occasionally, he can be annoying.”

“Right,” Disgust S added. “And I truly doubt that his baseline for how implausible something is would be very well-developed.”

“Garnet’s busy right now anyway,” Anger R said.

“But you got a letter!” Steven said.

“A letter?” Fear S said in surprise. “But Garnet never gets letters.”

“Not even junk mail,” Sadness R noted.

“Read it,” Garnet instructed.

So Steven read it; the letter, in rather flowery language, was from Jamie—evidently the name of the mailman—expressing his admiration for Garnet and inviting her to a meal at the Crab Shack.

“I think Jamie is asking you out,” Connie said. “On a date!”

The emotions in Garnet’s mind looked at each other.

“Well, that’s not gonna happen,” Disgust S said.

“Yeah, maintaining a romantic attachment to what is essentially yourself is pretty exhausting already,” Joy S said. “There’s no room for a third party. No offense.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Joy R said. “I’m also responsible for maintaining that attachment.”

Joy S shrugged. “It just seemed like the thing to say.”

“But guys!” Connie said. “Jamie put so much thought into this letter. It would be rude not to reply!”

“Who cares if we’re rude or not?” Disgust R said. “We’re not going out with him either way.”

“Well, it seems the children feel that a more diplomatic approach would be best,” Sadness S said.

Anger R grumbled. “Okay, we’ll write back. But we’re not going to sugarcoat it any.”

Garnet dictated her response to Connie: “No. The end, forever. And even after that. Yours truly, Garnet.”

“At least it’s honest and to the point,” Connie said.

“Well,” said Joy S, “now that that’s taken care of, we can get back to fusion-hunting.”

 

* * *

 

That night, Garnet had retired back into the temple. In her mind, she was formulating the best way to approach her search.

“If we warped to Mask Island, we could widen our range to more southern regions, Joy R said. “Plus, we could look at pretty reefs along the way.”

“But Lapis would most likely want to trap Jasper in the depths of the ocean, rather than the shallows,” Fear S said. “So if we jumped off the warp hub platform—”

“Except it’s been long enough that Lapis’s individual personality may have disappeared already,” Fear R interrupted. “Or she might have lost her control and so they defused.”

“So basically, all options are equally futile,” Disgust S snarked.

“Hold up,” Sadness S said, glancing at the future vision readouts. “I’m getting a sense of something significant happening in the beach house. We’d better go check on Steven.”

Doing so, Garnet discovered he was on the porch, talking to Jamie, who was standing out in the rain.

“What’s _he_ doing here?” Disgust R wondered. “Didn’t the letter we write make it clear Garnet wasn’t interested?”

“Garnet! You’ve come!” Jamie said. “You can tell Steven about all the beautiful things you wrote to me in your missive.” He produced a letter—one that was different from what Garnet had dictated.

“What?” Fear S cried. “We didn’t write that!”

“But it's all right here,” Jamie said, “stained with tears of joy, and now also rain.”

“Connie and I wrote that letter, Jamie,” Steven blurted.

Anger S facepalmed. “Of _course_ they did.”

Sadness S groaned. “Oh, Steven. You mean so well, but a lot of the time, you’re simply _too nice._ ”

“All right,” Anger R said. “It’s time to inform this guy that we are in NO way interested! Direct and straight, no beating around the bush—like we tried to do in the first place!”

“I am not, nor will I ever be interested,” Garnet stated firmly. “Go away!”

Jamie did so, running away crying.

Joy R shrugged. “He’ll get over it.”

 

* * *

 

The next day, Garnet was once again combing the bottom of the sea. She still didn’t find Jasper and Lapis, but she _did_ find a corrupted Gem creature with a gelatinous body that clung to her. She tried to poof it, but its density was such that her blows had no effect but instead went right through it.

“Okay, this thing’s kind of annoying,” Disgust S said.

“Maybe it’ll be easier on land?” Fear R suggested.

So, with the creature on her back, Garnet leapt out of the sea and onto the beach, next to where Steven and Connie were. She slammed it on the ground and thrust her fist into it, but it still didn’t retreat into its Gem.

“Why is this thing so hard to defeat?” Anger R shouted.

“Oh, let’s just fling it back into the ocean,” Anger S suggested. “If it’s really a threat, we can deal with it then.”

“Are you sure that—“

“Whatever, it’s happening,” Anger R said, interrupting Fear S.

Garnet tossed the creature away and turned to the children.

“They look sad,” Disgust R noted.

“We should address that,” Sadness R said.

“You look sad,” Garnet said.

“We really messed up this time,” Steven replied.

“Because of us, Jamie is feeling lower than ever!” Connie said.

“We shattered the man!”

“He’ll never love again!”

Disgust S groaned. “Can’t we get a break from this melodramatic mailman?”

“That’s it,” Anger R said. “We’ve got to put a stop to this once and for all. We’re going to have a face-to-face conversation with that man! No more letters! No more miscommunications or well-meaning interference!”

“Right,” Joy R said. “We need a way to make him feel better while getting him off our collective back.”

“Why don’t we just tell him we’re in a relationship?” Disgust R asked. “I’m sure he’ll leave Garnet alone if he knows she’s unavailable.”

“But that’d only help Garnet; it wouldn’t help Jamie at all,” Sadness S said. “The problem isn’t that he wants to date Garnet; it’s that he thinks he’s in love with her. I’m sure there’s attraction, but he doesn’t actually know us. Love doesn’t work like that. Ruby and Sapphire didn’t truly love each other until they had been fused for a while; Rose and Greg didn’t until they had talked. The best thing to do, for both of them, is to have Garnet try to dissuade Jamie from these incorrect notions about love.”

“That sounds doable,” Joy S said.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Garnet informed the kids as she headed off.

“But your words will destroy him!” Connie protested, chasing after her.

“Can’t you just, like, zap his brain so he forgets any of this ever happened?”

“Huh,” Disgust S said. “If we could, that would also be a viable solution…”

“No, Disgust,” Sadness S said.

 

* * *

 

They found Jamie sitting on the beach, moping and lazily letting the wind carry envelopes from his hand to the sea. “Jamie,” Garnet said.

“Garnet!” Jamie said in surprise.

Garnet sat down next to him. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Then will you go out with me?”

“Seriously, dude?” Disgust R said. “Does this guy have a one-track mind or something?”

“Are humans’ minds set up the same way Gems’ are?” Disgust S wondered. “Because I’m wondering if his emotions are properly delegated.”

“But I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you!” Jamie said.

“Love at first sight doesn't exist. Love takes time, and love takes work. At the very least you have to know the other person. And you _literally_ have no idea of who, or what, I am.”

“Right,” Joy S remarked. “Like, with Ruby and Sapphire, they’ve gotten to know each other inside and out over the past millennia.”

“And because of it, their love for each other continues to grow even stronger,” Joy R added, giving her emotional counterpart a fistbump.

“But I bloom for you like a camellia under moonlight,” Jamie said.

“Can’t this man get it through his thick skull?” Anger R seethed. “Can we, like, give him a slap upside the head?”

“Settle down, R,” Anger S said. “While this _is_ getting really annoying, there’s no call for violence. Yet.”

“The problem is, he has a taste for the dramatic and he’s cast himself in the role of the lovelorn lead,” Sadness S observed.

“And he’s delved so deep into his role that he’s convinced even himself that it’s true,” Sadness R added.

“Well, if you consider that, he’s a pretty good actor,” Joy R said.

It seemed that Garnet had finally gotten through to Jamie. “What am I supposed to do now?” he asked.

“Start with local theater,” Garnet replied, giving Jamie a friendly—though ultimately a bit too forceful—pat on the back. She then walked away.

“I think that went nicely,” Joy S said. “If he still isn’t over us, then, well… it’s not our problem anymore.”

“And now that it’s done with,” Fear S remarked, “we can get back to hunting for Jasper and Lapis.”

The emotions groaned.


	7. Keeping it Together

“We need to track down Peridot,” Garnet said. “We found her pod. We know she's out there somewhere. She came to Earth with a job to do and odds are, she's still gonna try to do it. That's why I've gathered you here.”

“I thought it was so you can help me fold all this laundry!” Steven said.

He and the Crystal Gems were gathered around of large pile of Steven’s shirts, neatly folding and stacking them. Well, except for Amethyst, who was slacking off and reading.

“Well, it _did_ need to get done,” Disgust S said.   

“The chore wheel fell apart fast,” Disgust R added. “Pearl kind of took over _all_ the options for jobs.”

“Well, it’s better if we do them together anyway,” Joy S said.

“Emphasis on _together_ ,” Anger S said.

“Right, Amethyst needs to do her part,” Anger R added. “We just need to give her a little glare and… there we go.” She smiled as Amethyst put down her book and started helping.

“This is a lot,” Steven said. “I bet this folding would go faster if Ruby and Sapphire were here!”

“Well, he’s not wrong,” Fear S said.

“It’s adorable how he wants to spend more time with Garnet’s component Gems,” Joy S said.

“Maybe,” said Disgust S, “but that doesn’t mean we’re going to unfuse for this.”

“Garnet, you don’t think Peridot would come looking for us, do you?” Pearl asked.

“That’s a possibility I hadn’t considered,” Fear R said. “Is it plausible?”

“No, we weren’t her priority,” Fear S said. She pulled up some of Garnet’s memories. “She was sent here to do something in the Kindergarten…”

“You mean like reactivate it?”

“Perhaps.”

“That wouldn’t be good,” Sadness S said. “If the injectors are turned back on, and energy is drained for Gem production, the entire planet will become…”

“Janked,” Sadness R finished.

“Well, it’s a good thing the Gems will be able to stop her!” Joy R announced, giving Garnet a supply of confidence.

“And there’s no time like the present to do so,” Joy S said; so Garnet stood up and went over to the warp pad, telling the others to follow.

“What about this laundry?” Disgust S asked.

“It can wait,” Joy S said dismissively. “Garnet and the other three can do it when they get back.”

“Garnet, are you sure we should bring Steven?” Pearl asked as the hybrid joined them. “This might be dangerous.”

“Danger _is_ a potential,” Fear S said, “but Steven’s gained a lot of experience these past months, often with bigger threats than this one.”

“Right,” Joy R said. “Peridot’s got nothing we can’t handle.”

* * *

 

“It doesn’t look like anything’s been activated,” Fear R noted.

Garnet, and the other Gems, had arrived at the Kindergarten. There was no sign of Peridot, or indeed, or any disturbance.

“True,” Fear S said, “but just because Peridot hasn’t been here yet doesn’t mean she won come. We should do a thorough check of the perimeter so we can monitor any future entry.”

“So,” Disgust R asked while the Gems patrolled, “anything on the Future Vision?”

“You know it’s not completely reliable,” Fear S said, turning it on. “It would only come in handy if Peridot showed up while we were here,” she said, as the screen indicated that Peridot was nearby both physically and temporally, “or if she were… already… oh dear.”

“She _is_ here!” Anger S yelled, jumping up. “Let’s get her!”

A pursuit ensued, but despite the Gems’ best efforts, Peridot still managed to elude them. “Crystal Clods!” she shouted as she ran away. “Go ahead, wreck this place! See if I care! I already got what I needed!”

“Why that—“ Anger R began to fume, but Fear S cut her off.

“Let her go; she’s not that big a threat,” she said. “She’s just a technician; she can’t do anything without Homeworld’s technology.”

“So what was she here to do?” Sadness R asked. “Reactive the Kindergarten?”

Fear S shook her head. “If that were it, the injectors would be on,” she stated. “Her mission was something else.

“Then let’s find out what it was!” Joy R exclaimed.

“Should we bring the others?” Joy S asked.

Disgust S dismissed this. “Nah; let them capture her if they can. But we won’t need them.”

“Right,” said Fear S. “Garnet can handle whatever she finds.”

“Better grab Steven, though,” Sadness S said.

So Garnet grabbed him and explained her line of reasoning and lifting up some debris to reveal a passage leading underground.

“Oh!” Steven said. “You’re brains _and_ brawn! The whole package!” He gave her a high-five.

Joy R smiled and leaned back. “Yep, Garnet’s a pretty great gal.”

“Is it ‘cause you’re a fusion?”

“Well, Ruby and Sapphire weren’t weak per se,” Sadness R began.

“Right,” Sadness S continued. “It’s just that when two gems combine, they add up to something greater than the sum of their parts. Should we explain that?”

“Eh, let’s just tease him a little,” Disgust S said with a wicked grin. “Garnet has to keep _some_ of her secrets, after all.”

As they descended into the depths of the Kindergarten, Steven continued pressing Garnet. “Is the strong part of you Ruby and the wise part of you Sapphire?”

“I’ve got a feeling I should take offense to that,” Anger R said.

“He’s just being curious,” Sadness S said. “But I do feel we should explain that a fusion results in something more than just their components’ traits added together.”

“Like I said; Garnet’s a pretty great gal,” said Joy R.

Steven was going to ask another question, but cut himself off as they entered the chamber below. “I don’t know how,” he said, “But this place is even creepier than the last time we were here.”

“He’s right,” Fear R said. “There’s something strange going on here. We should keep on our toes.”

The two investigated what appeared to be cylindrical capsules pulled out from the wall. As Garnet approached one, it began to rattle.

“Is there… something in there?” Steven asked uncertainly.

“ _Definitely_ need to keep on our toes,” Fear R said.

“Well, whatever’s in there, it can’t be that bad, right?” Joy R said.

Something dropped behind them from the ceiling; Garnet picked it up and examined it. It appeared to be a blue hand and a red foot grafted together. It was wriggling.

“Well, that’s… disconcerting,” Disgust R said.

Other, similar pairings of limbs began dropping down. Steven wondered out loud what they were, right before the one Garnet was holding got loose and grabbed hold of him.

“We’d better take care of that,” Fear S said.

So Garnet punched the unknown entity, poofing it and leaving behind a curious object.

“It looks like two gem shards stuck together,” Steven observed.

“Gack!” Disgust S yelled. “Get rid of it get rid of it get rid of it!”

Garnet tossed the offending artifact away, towards the other experiments of its ilk.

“Oh man,” Fear R said, nearly hyperventilating. “How could this happen?”

“What the heck!” Anger R yelled. “What! The! _Heck._ ”

“What are these things? How did they…” Sadness S began, before a horrifying clarity overcame her. “Oh no.”

A nearby container exploded, releasing what appeared to be a collection of gem shards welded together; with a blood-curdling shriek, it began the process of developing a physical body, the silhouettes of lights making it clear that its components were struggling to separate into their own, individual forms, before retreating and emerging as a monstrous, creeping hulk that lurched towards them.

The control room was in chaos. Both Sadnesses were sobbing; Disgust R looked like she was going to vomit; Joy S clutched her head in her hands, staring blankly downward, not daring to look at the screen.

“Panic!” Fear R cried, putting everything she had into her controls. “Intense, overwhelming, stupefying panic!”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Fear S yelled, slamming down on her own console.

“I can’t handle this,” Anger S said. “I just can’t—no. I’m done.”

Cracks began forming in the control room, and it began to shake violently; Garnet’s two halves risked breaking apart.

“Garnet, you’re coming undone!” Steven yelled. “Garnet! Please! This isn’t like you!”

Joy S sat up at these words. “He’s right, this isn’t like us,” she said. “We—Garnet—are stronger together. And we have to remain strong.”

“Right,” Joy R said. “We have to keep together.”

The other looked uncertain, but complied. They all held hands, focusing on maintaining the fusion. Then, with a grim determination, they allowed Garnet to fight the creature, poofing it and bubbling the result.

“We did it!” Steven exclaimed in celebration, but Garnet’s emotions weren’t as enthusiastic.

“So,” Disgust R said, “this is what Homeworld thinks of fusion. Just a tool… one that can be made from unwilling participants.”

“There’s no way we could have known they would do this,” Fear S said softly. “We never could have imagined that they would do this…”

“We looked and looked, but could never find them,” Fear R said. “This is where they were… they’ve been here the whole time!”

“All this time, incubating…” Sadness R said. “All this time…. suffering…”

“But we couldn’t have known they would have done this,” Sadness S said. “We didn’t know it was possible… that they would go this far…”

“This is punishment for the rebellion!” Anger R cried. “Punishment for defying Homeworld! For fusion!”

“This isn’t out fault!” Anger S yelled.

“Garnet!” yelled a concerned Steven.

“Steven!” Fear S exclaimed. “We totally forgot he was there!”

“I hope he’s not too concerned about us,” Sadness R said.

Before Garnet could comfort him, they heard the sounds of Amethyst and Pearl approaching, the two having found the tunnel their friends had gone off to.

“Quick, get a pair of glasses on Garnet!” Disgust S yelled. “We can’t let them see us like this!”

“We can’t let them worry about us too,” Sadness R said.

“We have to try to be brave, calm, and collected,” Fear R agreed.

“We lost Peridot,” Pearl explained. “Her fingers were too fast for us.” Her attention shifted to a pair of hands that were crawling up Amethyst. “Um what are these things?” she asked, picking them up.

“Put them down!” Garnet yelled.

“That wasn’t very calm and collected,” Disgust R said, eyeballing Anger S, who had slammed down on her controls.

“Sorry,” Anger S said defensively, “but those things just elicit a strong reaction, you know?”

“Yeah,” Anger R added. “It was a completely understandable response, so back off her!”

“Guys! Please!” Joy R yelled. “Can we please not fight, at least for the moment?”

“If we need to, we can settle our thoughts later,” Joy S added. “But right now, we need to be of one mind.”

The other emotions murmured in agreement.

“We need to poof and bubble all of them,” Garnet said firmly. “We can't let any escape.”

* * *

 

They managed to capture all the experiments—or at least, all the ones they could find—by the afternoon, before the group headed back to the temple. Garnet, for her part, continued working on Steven’s laundry, hanging out on the statue’s hand while a load was in the dryer. Steven appeared on the warp pad. “Hey, Garnet,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“Ugh, he wants to discuss it,” Anger S said. “I really don’t want to deal with that.”

“It’s nice that he’s concerned,” Sadness R noted.

“Yes,” said Disgust S, “but there’s a time to talk about things like that, and a time to… _not_ talk about it.”

“Let’s just deliberately misconstrue what he’s asking about,” Disgust R said.

So Garnet distracted Steven by saying that the towels were still damp.

“Do we even have plumbing up here? How do you get the washer and dryer to work?”

“Well, it’s a complex system of various gem technologies,” Sadness R said, “but explaining it will most likely just bore or confuse Steven.”

“So let’s just say it’s magic,” Disgust S said. “He won’t question it.”

“It’d be nice to be so innocent to be able to believe in magic,” Joy S said wistfully.

“Yeah; but innocence can’t last,” Sadness S said. “Not when he sees firsthand all the awful things Homeworld’s done.”

She pressed a button and Garnet’s expression fell a bit.

“Are you alright?” Steven asked concernedly.

Joy R glanced around. “I think Garnet will be fine, all things considered.”

“Wish Steven hadn’t seen it, though,” Sadness S said.

“Oh, it’s okay,” Steven said.

“Okay?” Disgust R echoed. “What happened is _not_ okay!”

“Um, Disgust?” Fear S said. “I think you’re deliberately misconstruing him again.”

“No, no, she has a point,” Anger S interjected. “What Homeworld did was _wrong,_ in every sense of the word. Taking shards of fallen Gems and combining them like that…”

“Exactly,” Anger R continued. “Those Gems weren’t asked if they wanted to participate; they were simply used, like objects! Fusion is a choice, but they weren’t given a choice. It’s not right! It’s not _fusion_!”

The dryer buzzed, indicating it was finished; Steven began pulling his clothes out into a basket. “What’s it like, being a fusion?” he asked.

“Steven should know,” Fear R said. “He’s fused.”

“I mean, like, all the time,” Steven clarified. “Do you forget who you used to be?”

“Nope,” Fear S said, pulling up memories of both Ruby and Sapphire. “We’ve got plenty of them right here.”

“But those are from Ruby and Sapphire; they aren’t Garnet’s,” Sadness R commented. “When we view them as Garnet, they’re not our memories. Not really.”

“She’s right,” said Joy S. “When we play these memories to her, everything—the sensory input, thoughts, and feelings—are relayed. But the massive feeling of _joy_ Garnet feels just by existing overwhelms anything felt back then, so in a way, she forgets she was ever alone.”

“When you split up,” asked Steven, “is it like you disappear?”

“Well, once again,” Fear S said, “Ruby and Sapphire retain the memories formed as Garnet…”

“And once again, it’s not simply that technical,” Joy S amended. “Because even when apart, the love Ruby and Sapphire have for each other—the love that Garnet embodies—will still be felt by them. That means that, even when they’re split up, Garnet will still exist. But luckily, the strength of their love allows them to remain fused for a very long time.”

“Good thing too,” Joy R said, “because I can’t think of any other set of emotions I’d rather work with.” Joy R said, giving her counterpart a kiss on the cheek.

“Get a room!” Anger R demanded jokingly. Disgust S pretended to gag.

The two Joys giggled.


	8. Cry For Help

Because the warp was destroyed, the Crystal Gems arrived at the Communication Hub riding on Lion’s back. As suspected, it had gotten repaired by Peridot and was transmitting again.

“And now it’s sending a message to Homeworld,” Fear R said.

“And it’s interfering with television,” Sadness S added.

The other emotions stared at her.

“Hey, it upsets Steven,” she said.

“So, we just gotta wreck it up again, right?” Steven said. “You guys should form Sugilite!”

“Well, it’s up to Garnet, I guess,” said Amethyst. “What do you say?” she said, turning. “Shall we mash it up?”

“Well, that’s a definite ‘no’,” Disgust R said.

“Exactly,” said Fear S, pulling up some memories. “I mean, look what happened last time!”

“Yeah!” Anger R said. “It was a complete disaster!”

Sadness S sighed. “We hurt Steven, we _really_ hurt Pearl, we destroyed the warp…”

“When we get together with Amethyst’s emotions, we tend to get carried away,” Sadness R added.

“Unless Pearl’s emotions are there to help us remain balanced,” Disgust S noted. “Though the last time we formed Alexandrite went poorly as well, but that was due to other things…”

“So the best bet here would be fusing with Pearl solo,” Fear R said.

“Right,” said Joy R. “The time has come to bust out Sardonyx.”

Garnet turned to Pearl. “Let’s fuse,” she said.

Pearl quivered with anticipation.

“Oh boy,” Disgust R said. “Here come the waterworks.”

“She doesn’t get a chance to do this often,” Sadness S explained. “She must be overwhelmed by the prospect of doing this.”

“Well, being Sardonyx _is_ pretty fun,” Joy R said.

The two moved to a suitably open area and, after Pearl had warmed up, began to dance. Moving as to get in sync with one another, the two moved closer, and Garnet lifted Pearl up. She tossed her into the air, and when she came down again, they fused.

Five new emotions were in the control room. Joy P ran over and gave Garnet’s Joys a big hug. “Good to see you again!”

“Good to see you too, P,” Joy R said, smiling.

“It’s so nice to be able to spend time with you without certain… vulgar elements,” Disgust P said. “And without the risk of having to eat anything.”

Joy S giggled. “That’s a bit mean, but also true!”

“Well, let’s get started,” Joy P said, sitting down at the controls. “We should give Steven a good show, after all.”

And so they did; Sardonyx put on an act of confident theatrics, showing off and good-naturedly talking herself up. Eventually, she summoned Pearl’s spear and Garnet’s gauntlets, combining them into a giant hammer.

“Are you gonna smash stuff with your war hammer?” Steven asked.

“I’m thinking we should be a bit more… _precise_ than that,” Fear R said.

“Right,” Disgust P said. “Smashing is more the purview of _other_ Gems… and I think you know who.”

“Oh, you’re _terrible_!” Joy S said, laughing.

And so, with self-assured accuracy, Sardonyx knocked the pillars out of the hub, disabling it, before descending back to the ground and giving her departing speech.

“It’s time to be done already?” Sadness P said.

“We don’t want to stay fused too long,” Fear R explained. “Just until we finish the job—and we’ve finished.”

“But we could fuse again if the need arises!” Joy R said, smiling.

“Right,” said Joy P. “If the need arises.”

So, they unfused; Garnet and Pearl were left holding each other.

“That was fun,” Joy S remarked.

* * *

 

The next say, Garnet was sitting with Steven, watching television. _Crying Breakfast Friends_ , to be precise.

“Explain to me again why we’re watching this?” Anger R groused.

“Steven invited us,” Joy S responded.

“I have no idea why he likes this show,” Disgust S said. “It just seems like a bunch of animated nonsense.”

“It’s not even that sad,” Sadness R noted.

“Oh, hey, Amethyst!” Steven yelled at his purple teammate, who had just come out of her room and was rooting through the fridge. “You’re missing _Crying Breakfast Friends_!”

“That’s okay, I’m fine.”

“But it’s a really good one so far!”

“I would have to disagree,” Disgust R said.

“And _I’d_ have to agree with _that_ ,” Disgust S said.

Almost immediately, however, the picture on the screen became static.

“The signal’s blocked again?” said Anger R. “Seriously?”

“I don’t understand,” said Fear S. “How could she have repaired the Hub so quickly?”

“Maybe she has some hidden tools?” Fear R said. “She showed off her electric shocks and helicopter fingers the last time we saw her.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Joy S said. “We disabled it before, we’ll disable it again.”

“Even if it means _Crying Breakfast Friends_ comes back,” Disgust S said.

* * *

 

And so the team arrived at the Hub, and Garnet and Pearl fused into Sardonyx, who disabled it, and they all went home again; and that was that, until the next day when the interference returned.

“This makes no sense,” said Fear S, searching through the Future Vision. “I can’t see them catching Peridot. Garnet and the others stake out the Hub, but she never shows up.”

“Maybe she has a cloaking device?” Fear R suggested.

“Well, I just hope we _can_ catch her, or that she’ll realize continually repairing the Hub is futile,” Anger S said, “because this is getting _annoying_.”

* * *

 

The team proceeded as they had twice before; however, this time, as Garnet and Pearl were about to begin their fusion dance, they were interrupted.

“Stop!” Amethyst yelled.

“Huh? What’s the matter with her?” Fear R wondered.

“You… you shouldn’t…” Amethyst stammered.

“Pearl, we saw you,” said Steven. “You need to tell Garnet it was you!”

“What are they talking about?” Disgust S said. “What was her?”

But the look of guilt in Pearl’s face, and her mumbled explanation about having fun being Sardonyx, and they quickly realized the truth.

“The Hub,” Fear S said. “She’s the one who was repairing the Hub.”

“Just so she’d have an excuse to form Sardonyx,” Disgust R fumed.

“Except what she did was _inexcusable_!” Anger R yelled.

“I can’t believe she’d do this,” said Sadness S.

“Yeah; she _knows_ how important fusion is to us,” Disgust S said. “But she went and abused it anyway!”

“She completely violated our trust,” Fear R said.”

“I just wanted to share a few more victories with you!” Pearl stammered.

“Victories?” Anger S yelled. “Fixing a problem she deliberately created is _not_ a victory!”

“We wasted all this time on the Hub when we could have been searching for Peridot,” said Fear R.

“Who cares about Peridot?” Anger R fumed. “Pearl’s the one who tricked us just so we would fuse with her!”

“Wait, Garnet!” Amethyst interjected. “We’re so much weaker than you. Fusing with you is like our one chance to feel… stronger!”

“What—is she actually trying to defend her?” Anger R said.

“This team’s falling apart,” Sadness R wept.

“We still have to disable the Hub,” Fear S noted.

“Well, we’re _not_ going to do it with Sardonyx!” Anger S said. “We’ll form Sugilite and destroy this Hub once and for all!”

“Sugilite?” Fear R asked. “You sure that’s a good idea? I mean, last time…”

“I don’t care!” Anger S shouted.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Garnet said through gritted teeth. She and Amethyst marched towards each other and fused.

Amethyst’s five emotions appeared in the room, all looking cowed, not just Fear.

“Hey, guys,” Sadness A said, giving a timid wave.

“Zip it,” said Anger R. “We’re going to bring down the Hub so it’s beyond repair and then be done.”

So, without any attempt at pleasantries, Sugilite smashed up the tower.

Garnet didn’t speak to Pearl the whole next day. Or the next one. Or the next…


	9. Keystone Motel

It had been a week since the Sardonyx incident and things still weren’t back to normal. Pearl, unnerved by Garnet’s cold, judgmental silence, had retreated from the temple with no word on when she’d return.

“Suits me just fine,” Disgust R. “That traitor can keep away forever as far as I care.”

“But what if she gets into trouble?” Fear S asked.

“Well,” said Joy R, “does the Future Vision have her getting into trouble?”

“Er… no.”

“See?

Garnet walked into the beach house, where Pearl was talking to Steven.

“Oh _great_ ,” Anger R shouted. “The liar’s back!”

“Settle down,” said Joy S. “You can’t get so worked up every time you see her. She lives here; she’s part of our team. We’re bound to interact eventually.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I have to _like_ it.”

“Oh! Garnet! I was _just_ looking for Peridot!” Pearl said. “She’s bound to be somewhere, right?”

Sadness R sighed. “She thinks she can make it up to Garnet by capturing Peridot,” she said. “But Peridot’s not what caused this. She did.”

“Right,” Anger S said. “She’s trying to fix a _symptom_ of what she did instead of addressing the _root_ of the issue.”

“Exactly!” said Anger R. “And until she does, we’ll continue treating her like this! No mercy! No lenience!”

“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Fear S asked.

“Nope!” Anger R pressed some buttons.

Garnet said nothing but continued walking.

“I’m sorry…”

This gave Garnet pause.

“She sounds pretty sincere,” Sadness S said.

“Well, sincere’s not good enough!” Anger R said.

“Who wants to go on a road trip?” Greg yelled as he stormed into the beach house.

Disgust S groaned. “This is not a good time, Greg.”

“No, no,” said Joy S, “let him talk. Be polite. He doesn’t know about the problems they’ve had.”

“Right,” said Joy R. “He’s done nothing wrong. Unlike some other people we could name.”

So Greg explained how he had bought some supplies for the car wash online, but had to drive over to the next state, Keystone, to pick them up. With this in mind, he was planning to stay overnight at a motel.

“It’ll have a pool, and free ice, and it's right next to the best diner in the world!”

“You know,” said Sadness S, “getting away for a bit, just for a night, might be good right now. Clear Garnet’s head.”

“Yeah!” Joy S concurred. “And it might be fun besides!”

“I’m not too sure about this,” said Sadness R. “Isn’t this just like running away from our problems?”

“No,” said Joy S. “This is simply placing some _distance_ between us and our problems.”

So Garnet indicated that she’d like to come along.

“Hey, Garnet,” Greg whispered, “I know I'm talking this place up, but... it ain't exactly the Ritz.”

“ _I’ll_ be the judge of that,” Garnet said, smiling.

“You know, it probably _won’t_ be the Ritz,” Fear R said to Joy S. “I feel like you’re trying to justify Garnet going on this trip.”

“What? I’m just being optimistic.”

“Well, in that case, road trip!” Greg yelled.

“Road trip!” Steven repeated.

“Road trip,” Garnet said, nodding. But she sounded unsure.

“Oh, come on, Fear!” Joy S said to Fear R. “Why’d you have to make Garnet all hesitant like that?”

“I’m just not convinced that this trip is the best idea right now.”

“Wonderful!” Pearl said. “I’ll make sure that Amethyst knows that—“

Garnet ignored her and went outside.

“Hey!” Disgust S said. “ _Now_ which one of us is running away from our problems?”

“That wasn’t running away,” Disgust R said. “I just didn’t want to listen to her.”

* * *

 

As the trio crossed the state line and checked into the motel, Garnet remained stoic. But in her mind, her emotions were engaged in a heated argument, reaching its peak just as Greg had left to collect his purchase.

“It’s not like Pearl disappeared just because she’s in another state!”

“Would you stop fretting over Pearl?” Disgust S asked. “Can’t you put the past behind?”

“But that’s _not_ the past!” Anger R yelled. “That’s still the present!”

“But the present _becomes_ the past!” Joy S stated.

“And the future becomes the present!” Fear S added.

“Look!” Anger S said, activating the future vision. “Dozens of long-term scenarios, all of which show Garnet getting along with Pearl. That means that, eventually, Pearl will realize her wrongs and we’ll forgive her. We might not know exactly _when_ or _how_ it’ll happen, but it _will_ happen!”

“Who cares?” Anger R rebutted. “It hasn’t happened yet! Here in the present, the rift’s still happening!”

“They function _best_ as a team!” Fear S said. “We need to do what we can to keep them together.”

“Oh, so that means we have to ignore how _we_ feel?” Disgust R groused.

“Well, we can’t keep feeling angry forever!”

“Oh yeah?” Anger R said. “We’ll see about that!” He grabbed his controls.

“Hey!” Anger S yelled. “Those are _my_ controls, too!”

The two tussled over control of the controls to the point where Garnet’s mind couldn’t handle the conflict anymore; she split in twain and sent her emotions back to their own, original stations, those of Ruby and Sapphire, who tumbled to the floor of the motel room.

“Gah!” Fear S shouted. “We have to fuse again!”

“Spending a little time apart won’t hurt us,” Disgust S said, taking the center seat of the console. “We can fuse when Ruby and her emotions stop being ridiculous.”

Over in Ruby’s head, her emotions were also unconcerned with fusing back right away.

“First Pearl, now Sapphire… Isn’t there anyone who we can depend on?” Sadness R sobbed.

“Oh, whatever!” Anger R said. “At least this way I get to have the anger controls all to myself. And I choose to be angry at Pearl _and_ Sapphire!”

So indeed, Ruby began arguing with Sapphire, not caring about Steven’s discomfort. Her anger made her body temperature rise, threatening to catch something on fire.

“Ruby, the carpet,” Sapphire warned.

“Yeah,” Fear R said. “Burning the motel down wouldn’t be a wise course of action.”

“Okay, _fine_ ,” said Anger R. “We’ll go outside.”

So Ruby went outside, where she paced and muttered to herself. She continued pacing and muttering even when Steven invited her into the pool, which quickly became boiling hot, forcing Steven to retreat back to the room.

The room, however, had turned to freezing due to Sapphire’s ice powers.

“A-are you doing okay?” Steven stammered, teeth chattering due to the cold.

“We’re doing just fine!” Disgust S announced. “Because unlike Ruby’s emotions, all of _us_ are rational enough to remain calm and collected during such strife.”

“Exactly!” Anger S said, not noticing her elbow was pressing down one of her buttons. “We’re a model of emotional restraint!”

“Ruby can't avoid the inevitable,” Sapphire said. “She's just letting her emotions get out of hand.”

“Not you though?”

“No.”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Steven said.

“And that’s also inevitable,” Disgust S said. “Gross, but inevitable.”

“Uh, Sapphire?” Steven said. “The toilet’s frozen.”

“Oh well,” Joy S said with a shrug. “One can’t avoid these things. They just have to accept them as they are.”

Annoyed, Steven went outside to pee.

“And you’re all sure that everything will work out?” Sadness S asked.

“Of course!” Joy S said. “That’s how fate works.”

“Without Ruby comingling with Sapphire’s body, her future vision is working at peak capacity,” Fear S said. “Look! We can predict what will happen with almost complete certainty. Greg will return with the brushes safe and sound; he’ll bring a pizza, which Steven won’t like because it’s square…”

“Square pizza _is_ kind of weird,” Disgust S said.

“…and we’ll reconcile with Pearl within a few months! And Ruby too, most likely, though future vision doesn’t work with fusion…”

“Right,” said Joy S. “She’ll calm down and see that Sapphire’s right eventually.”

* * *

 

Ruby paced all through the night, while Sapphire sat in the room, leaving Greg and Steven to bunk in the van. In the morning, everyone gathered together and went to a local diner for breakfast. But while Steven and his father dined on bacon and eggs, neither Gem touched their plate.

“What’s the matter?” Greg asked. “Not hungry?”

“Gems don’t need to eat, Dad.”

“Garnet likes to eat sometimes.”

The mention of this name triggered something in Ruby’s mind. “Garnet? Ruby’s not Garnet!” Anger R said. “She only becomes Garnet when she fuses with Sapphire! And she’s not fused!”

Ruby began to shake the table.

“Ugh,” said Disgust S. “Now she’s shaking the table.”

Sapphire turned to the others. “This will pass,” she said. “She’ll eventually just burn herself out.”

“That’s what _she_ thinks,” Anger R said.

“Yeah!” Joy R said. “Ruby’s an eternal flame, baby!”

Greg and Steven quickly grabbed their plates as Ruby summoned a gauntlet—smaller than Garnet’s, but still formidable—and pounded the table, sending everything crashing to the floor.

“Hey, it’s okay, pal!” Greg said to Steven. “We can still save this! Why don't we just bag them up to go, and—“

But Steven threw his plate to the ground and stormed out of the restaurant.

“Steven!” Fear S gasped in concern. “We should head after him.”

Over in her mind, Ruby’s fear had the same thought. The two gems Sapphire rushed after Steven, calling out to him.

“I was so happy when Garnet said she was gonna come on this trip with me and Dad!” Steven snapped. “Home's been awful! Here's been awful! I thought you wanted to have a fun time but, everyone's been acting awful too! It just came with us! I don't understand! Is it… is it me?”

Sadness S gasped. “He thinks it’s his fault!” she said. “We were too caught up in our feud with Ruby that we didn’t think about how _he_ felt!”

“Yeah, but what about how _Ruby_ feels?” Anger S said. “We kept looking at the future, when everything was solved… we were totally neglecting the present!”

Sadness S sobbed. “You’re right!”

“No wonder you think I don’t care!” Sapphire cried. Tears streamed down the middle of her face.

“She’s blaming herself?” Sadness R asked. “ _Ruby_ was the one in the wrong! Getting so upset over such a small disagreement…”

“Okay, maybe I got a bit carried away,” Anger R admitted.

“And the rest of us _let_ you get carried away!” Disgust R said. “We didn’t bother looking for a solution, we just wanted to be mad! We were being totally unreasonable!”

“You’re right!” Ruby said. “You’re always right! I was being stupid!”

“I don’t think you’re stupid!” Sapphire said.

Ruby comforted her partner, brushing aside her hair and wiping the tears from her single eye.

“You know,” said Joy R, “at least when we’re split up like this, Ruby’s able to see how cute Sapphire is.”

The two gems laughed and began canoodling.

“Man, I love it when she gets all mushy like this,” Joy S said with a smile.

“But she be getting this mushy in front of Steven?” Fear S wondered.

“Oh, who cares?”

Greg, having paid for the damages at the restaurant, walked up. “I think I’m all vacationed out,” he said. “Ready to call it a day?”

“I think we probably should,” Sadness S said. “And we should fuse back before that; this is the longest we’ve remained apart in quite a while.”

“And I’m sure Ruby’s ready too,” Joy S said, looking at her smiling visage.

So the two groups once again occupied the same headspace.

“So,” Joy R said, “back to the temple?”

“Well, now that I think about it,” Joy S said, “we really shouldn’t leave before getting our…”

“…free ice!” the two said at the same time.

“Of course,” said Fear R, “If we were still split up, we wouldn’t _need_ that ice; Sapphire could just make it!”

“You saying we should unfuse to access her powers?” Anger S teased.

“Nah, we’re good,” Joy R said.

* * *

 

So, Greg, Steven, and Garnet drove home. Entering the beach house, they were greeted by Pearl.

“Garnet, how are you?” she asked.

Garnet held up her hand. “Not now,” she said. It was the first time she had spoken to Pearl in a week.

“We’ll reconcile eventually…” Sadness R said.

“…but not until we’re both ready,” Sadness S concluded.


	10. Friend Ship

The Crystal Gems were gathered in the beach house, where Pearl had rigged up Peridot’s escape pod to the warp pad. “Now every time a warp is used,” Pearl said, “we’ll receive a notification of which one it is. Since Peridot’s the only Gem on Earth who routinely uses warps besides us, it’ll let us track her movements.”

The emotions in Garnet’s mind watched this on the screen.

“This seems like a promising method to locate Peridot,” Fear S remarked.

“Yes,” said Fear R. “But I’m wary that Pearl’s doing this to try to make up for what she did.”

“Of course that’s why she’s doing this,” Anger R said. “She just doesn’t get it! It’s not that she wasted time on a fool’s errand! It’s that she wasted time on a fool’s errand _so she could fuse with Garnet_!”

It had been three weeks since the Sardonyx incident. Pearl and Garnet still hadn’t reconciled, and it was starting to take its toll on the team.

“Well,” said Joy R, “maybe once we capture Peridot, she’ll realize the true root of the problem. Then we can truly begin the healing process.”

“I certainly hope so,” Sadness S said.

 The escape pod activated. Pearl inserted her hand and projected an image of the globe from her gem. “Looks like she’s at the Galaxy Warp.”

“The Galaxy Warp?” Fear S said. “She must be trying to get off-world… she may attempt to repair those warps.”

“Well, we won’t let her!” Anger S said. “We’ll catch her, and poof her, and bubble her! Let’s go!”

* * *

 

The Crystal Gems warped, and indeed, Peridot was where the escape pod had indicated.

“Look!” said Pearl giddily. “I was right! My plan worked perfectly!”

“Good morning!” Steven said cheerfully.

Disgust R groaned. “I don’t think we should be greeting our enemies so casually,” she said.

“And Pearl shouldn’t be so cocky,” Disgust S added.

Sadness S sighed. “She really wants to impress Garnet,” she said. “But this isn’t the way to do it.”

“What!?” a shocked Peridot exclaimed. “How did you know I was here?”

“We found a secret way to track you, and we'll never tell you how, even if you ask nicely,” Steven said, taunting her.

“And I don’t think we should be telling our enemies that we have a secret way of tracking them, even if we don’t reveal the exact method,” Disgust R said.

“Well, it won’t matter,” Joy R said. “Cause we’re going to capture right here and now!”

“Peridot!” Garnet shouted. “We’re here to—“

“And you’ll _never_ get away with this!” Pearl interrupted.

“Come _on_!” Anger R shouted. “She interrupted our one-liner!”

“She seems to be a bit too… eager,” Sadness R noted.

“She _also_ seems a bit too _annoying_ ,” Disgust S groused.

“Prepare to be annoyed!” Pearl said, this time interrupting Amethyst.

“I don’t have time for this!” Peridot shouted. She charged up an energy blast and fired, hitting a column behind the group. Rubble came hurdling down towards them, but Steven managed to defend them with his shield.

“That’s it!” Pearl shouted, rushing towards their adversary. “I’m taking her out!”

“Oh no!” Fear S cried. “She shouldn’t be so brash! We’ve learned before that Peridot has a lot of tricks up her sleeve…”

But it was too late; Peridot had sent out some sort of beam that immobilized Pearl, allowing her to be swung around and sent flying back into her friends. They quickly recovered, however, and a series of maneuvers sent Peridot soaring through the air, Garnet poised to catch her.

“Alright!” Joy R cried, already celebrating their victory. “We’ve got her!”

“Steady now,” said Fear R. “Steady…”

But Pearl, who was also attempting to catch Peridot, crashed into her, sending both of them to the ground and allowing Peridot to helicopter safely over to a functional warp.

“Wow,” said Peridot, mockingly. “This is just _sad_. I almost feel sorry for you.” And she warped away.

“Have a great weekend!” Steven yelled. Seeing the others’ expressions, he amended it to: “I hope her weekend is not so great.”

“She can’t even hear him!” Disgust S complained.

“And then there was Pearl!” Anger R said. “We almost had Peridot, but then she went and got in the way, and so…” She trailed off into a series of frustrated grumbles.

In the seat next to her, Anger S similarly seethed. “She just doesn’t get it.”

* * *

 

Fortunately, the Gems were able to obtain another warp signal before too long. This time, it came from South America, near the ruins of a Homeworld ship left behind from the war.

“What’s she doing _here_ now?” Fear R wondered. “Trying to repair _this_ to get off-planet?”

“She must really be getting desperate,” Disgust S said.

As they entered, however, a hologram activated, projecting the visage of Peridot above them.

“Gah! Peridot!” Fear S shouted. “Be on your guard! Oh, no, wait… it’s just a projection. Still, it’d be wise to be on your guard nonetheless.”

The image of Peridot laughed. “You Gems really are as dull as dirt!”

“ _You’re_ the dull one if you think you can fly this wreck!” Pearl returned.

However, since the ship’s communications had grown over with moss, Peridot was unable to hear the quip, so Steven had to clear off a microphone and repeat it.

“Wow,” said Sadness S. “Her first decent one-liner all day and it got undercut by circumstance.”

“Serves her right,” Anger R said.

Peridot laughed again. “Fly? I'm not using this vessel to fly! I'm using it to _trap you_!”

The ship’s door slammed shut behind them.

“Okay,” said Fear S. “Now it’s _really_ time to be on our guard!”

“Prepare yourselves for annihilation!” Peridot yelled. She pressed a button.

Nothing happened.

Disgust R groaned. “ _How_ have we not caught her yet?”

Peridot pressed a different button, though, and a laser defense system activated, sending pellets of energy raining down.

“I think it’s time to switch from being on guard to actually… you know… getting out of here,” Fear R remarked.

Under the cover of Steven’s shield, Garnet and the other Gems fled further into the ship, and continued fleeing as a series of spikes emerged from the hallway. At the end of it stood Peridot—or at least, what looked like her.

“Peridot!” Pearl shouted, summoning her spear.

“What? No!” Fear S cried. “She can’t just go at her like that! Doesn’t she remember what happened last time?”

But it was too late; Pearl charged at the hologram and continually tried to stab it.

“Oh, come on!” Anger R shouted. “I’m really getting fed up with her behavior!”

“Well, all of us would like to finally get Peridot,” Sadness R commented.

“Yeah, but swinging at nothing won’t help us do that!” Anger R replied. “And it’s not capturing Peridot that she’s concerned about— _she_ wants to be the one to do it! Because she thinks that will make Garnet forgive her!”

“She just doesn’t get it!” both Angers said at the same time.

“I can’t believe I walked us into Peridot’s trap,” Pearl lamented.

“Okay, that’s not her fault,” Anger S said. “Even I can give her leeway in that.”

“Right,” Sadness S said. “The plan was decent enough, and we all went along with it. She shouldn’t blame herself for—“

Suddenly, the room began to quake. The floor opened up and all of them dropped through; Amethyst was able to save Steven and herself with her whips, but Garnet and Pearl fell all the way down, into a pit that slammed shut, closing them in. They hit the sides with their weapons, but they did no visible damage.

“Garnet… I’m sorry!” Pearl said. “Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way.”

“Still blaming herself,” Sadness S noted. “But even _we_ couldn’t have foreseen these traps. Okay, maybe we could have, but we _didn’t_ …”

“And besides,” Joy R said, “we’re sure to get out of this mess one way or another!”

“That's not what I mean,” Pearl said. “I really wanted to catch Peridot to make up for what I did... I wanted to prove to you that... that everything could go back to normal...”

“Does she really need it spelled out for her?” Disgust R grumbled. “The issue isn’t Peridot! The issue is that she lied to Garnet! I know, I know,” she said, turning to the Angers. “She just doesn’t get it!”

“Catching Peridot won't make things go back to normal,” Garnet said. “This isn't about Peridot.”

“Please! Tell me! How can I make you forgive me?”

“You can't! You lied to me! You need to learn that there are consequences to your actions!”

“I’m sorry!” Pearl cried. “I couldn’t help myself!”

“Okay, that’s just not true and she knows it!” Anger S shouted. “It’s not like she was under mind control or anything! _She_ chose to repair the Communications Hub, and _she_ chose to deceive Garnet!”

“But it's true!” Pearl said. “No matter how hard I try to be strong like you... I'm just a Pearl. I'm useless on my own. I need someone to tell me what to do. When we fuse, I can feel what it's like to be you. Confident and secure, and complete. You're perfect. You're the perfect relationship, you're always together, I just... I wanted to be a part of that.”

“Oh… I get it now,” Sadness S said. “She thinks she’s weak… but that Garnet’s strong.”

“But she’s wrong!” Sadness R said. “We have our weaknesses too. We _try_ to stay strong, so the others aren’t afraid, but sometimes we’re unable to… like a few weeks ago, when Ruby and Sapphire split up over this. Pearl should know that Garnet’s not always as strong as she thinks.”

“And she should know that she can be strong on her own too,” said Joy S. “In her own way.”

“You are your own gem,” Garnet said. “ _You_ control your destiny. Not me, not Rose, not Steven. But you must choose to be strong, so we can move forward. So I can trust you again.”

“...I understand,” said Pearl. “I can't give up anymore!”

“Good!” said Garnet. The room suddenly started closing in again, threatening to crush them. “Pearl, there’s only one way out of this!”

“Only if you’re okay with it.”

Anger R grinned. “She finally gets it.”

The tight confines provided no room to dance, but they were close enough to fuse anyway.

“Okay,” Fear P said, sitting down. “Let’s get out of here before it’s too late.”

“Exactly,” said Fear S.

Sardonyx, using her hammer as a drill, burst up through the ceiling, landing where Amethyst and Steven were waiting.

The emotions glanced around at each other, smiling over a job well done.

“Well, see you later,” Sadness P said.

Joy S nodded. “See you later.”

And they unfused.

* * *

 

The group made their way to where Peridot was hiding out, who tried to escape through a hole she made in the roof. But before she could fly away, Steven managed to grab onto her foot, with the others anchoring him down. Peridot detached her foot and flew off anyway.

“Okay… that was just _weird_ ,” Disgust S said.

“How was she able to do that?” Fear R wondered. “Like, did she shapeshift? Were her feet some sort of equipment?”

“Whatever it was, it let her get away again,” Sadness R said.

“Well,” said Joy S, “this was a pretty successful mission despite that.”

“Successful?” Anger S asked. “We just lost Peridot! Again!”

“True, but we _also_ regained a friend,” Joy S said.

“Plus, we got her foot. And that’s a good step forward,” Joy R added.

Disgust S groaned. “Can we unfuse for that pun?” she asked.

“Hey, I didn’t like it either,” Disgust R said.


	11. Hit the Diamond

Garnet and the other Crystal Gems were hiding in the barn. A squad of Homeworld Rubies was outside, searching the area for a Gem as Peridot, inside, freaked out about being captured.

“Well, we won’t let that happen!” Anger R exclaimed.

“Yeah!” Joy R agreed. “Except… _how_ do we not let that happen?”

“Well,” Fear S said, “they’re all Rubies, right? So we just need another Ruby to infiltrate them.”

“So what, we should shapeshift?” Fear R asked.

Disgust R rolled her eyes at this statement.

“Oh! You mean unfuse. I get it.”

They did so, and were greeted by the others.

“Just act casual,” Sapphire said, kissing Ruby on the cheek.

“Right!” Joy R said. “Casual.”

The others watched as Ruby sauntered out to meet the squad.

“I’d better check the future vision to see how well this plan goes,” Fear S said, fiddling with the controls.

“Look!” Joy S said excitedly, pointing at the screen. “In that scenario, Ruby’s able to convince the others to leave, no problem!”

“But in this one,” Sadness S said, “the plan fails, and we’re forced to fight them.”

“And in this one… we play a game of baseball with them?” Disgust S said quizzically. “Okay, there’s no way that will actually happen.”

* * *

 

“We’ve got this,” Joy R said as Garnet’s Ruby strolled up to the ones from Homeworld. “We just have to act casual.”

“Wait,” Fear R said. “What _is_ casual? I mean, we haven’t seen Homeworld society in thousands of years. Maybe their idea of casual has changed!”

“There’s no way to know,” Sadness R said. “The best we can do is to subtly find out what they’re all doing here.”

“Hey!” Ruby said nervously. “What are we all doing over here?”

The other Rubies looked at her.

Disgust R groaned. “Great.”

But luckily, another of the scouts had the same question, so the leader answered it. “We’re here to retrieve the leader of the Earth mission!” she said. She observed the rubies lined up before her. “Hey, wait a second. It seems like there are more of us than usual!”

“Oh no,” Fear R cried. “This is it! We’ll be found out!”

But as the leader double-checked, she forgot to count herself, which left her with the correct number of five. “Never mind,” she said. She continued her briefing. “The leader of the Earth mission should be around here somewhere.”

“Okay,” Fear R said, “We have to make sure they don’t check the barn.”

“She’s definitely not in that barn!” Ruby blurted out.

“Woah,” the leader said, “I didn’t notice that before. Maybe we _should_ look around in there.”

“Um, I’ll go! By myself!” Ruby ran into the barn to inform the others. “They want to search the barn!” she stammered. “I’m scared!”

“Wow,” Disgust S said, observing Sapphire’s partner through the viewscreen. “I forgot how jittery Ruby could be.”

“Well,” Fear S replied, “She no longer has access to Sapphire’s future vision, so to her, her fate—particularly in such a sensitive mission of espionage—is precariously uncertain.”

“Let’s ambush them!” Amethyst yelled, holding up a bat.

“No need for that yet,” Sadness S said. “We just need to keep them away from the barn.”

“Right,” Joy S said. “We can just say that the barn’s a place for humans. And it wouldn’t even that much of a lie.”

Sapphire related the plan.

“I don’t want to go alone…” Ruby whimpered.

“Ooh!” Steven said enthusiastically. “I’ll come!”

“I was sort of hoping Sapphire would come,” Sadness R said.

“Well, this is probably better,” Joy R said. “Steven’s a human—or at least, half-human—so we can use him as an example of the humans in the barn.”

“Sapphire could have pretended to be a human…”

Nevertheless, Ruby escorted Steven out to the Homeworld Gems. “I checked the barn,” she said, “and I just found a bunch of humans!”

“Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it!” Fear R said.

“I think we’d better double-check,” the leader said. “You remember what happened last time.”

“Last time?” Ruby inquired.

The other Rubies laughed. “Oh, Ruby,” one of them said. “You’re so forgetful.”

“Alright,” another said, “let’s search the barn!”

“No!” Fear R screamed. She turned to the others emotions. “We have to come up with some way to stop them!”

“Like how?” Anger R grumbled.

“Yeah,” said Disgust R. “It’s not like we’re that great at strategy, and especially not on the fly.”

“Maybe Steven could think of something?” Sadness R suggested.

Ruby glanced nervously over at him.

“You have to play baseball!” Steven said.

The Rubies looked at each other.

“It’s a human thing,” Steven explained. “If you win, you can go inside, and if you lose, you gotta leave forever.”

“Well,” Disgust R said, shrugging, “it’s still better than anything _we_ could have come up with.”

* * *

 

“Huh,” Fear S said. “I didn’t expect for _this_ scenario to be the one that would actually happen.”

“Why couldn’t they have picked a contest we were guaranteed to win?” Anger S complained. “Or at least one that wouldn’t take so long?”

But it was too late to back out; so Sapphire and the other Gems, disguised as humans, competed against the Rubies, including Garnet’s.

“And this way,” Joy R said, “Ruby will be able to sabotage out own team’s chances of winning!”

“But we shouldn’t make it too obvious,” Fear R said. “Otherwise, they might suspect that she’s not actually—“

“Oh, knock it off, you worry-wort!” Anger R said. “Don’t overthink it and just play poorly!”

So Ruby deliberately missed all three pitches, demonstrating how it was three strikes and you’re out.

Eventually, Team Ruby got two more outs and took the field, with Garnet’s Ruby positioned as catcher. After a close call with Amethyst using her super-speed, with the Rubies’ ignorance of humans preventing them from becoming too suspicious, it was Sapphire’s turn to bat.

“Kind of funny, isn’t it?” Joy S said. “Here they are, as close as two Gems could possibly be, playing on opposite teams but still working together… and none of the Homeworld Rubies even know it!”

Ruby’s Joy, in her own mind, had the same line of thinking.

“Wow,” Joy R said. “That uniform’s pretty adorable on her.”

“It is,” Sadness R said. “It’s a shame she’s not able to wear it all the time. You know, both because of the game and because we’re always fused.”

“So we should enjoy it while we can!”

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” Ruby asked with a grin.

“I don’t know,” Sapphire replied. “I don’t get off-planet much.”

The two of them giggled.

“Strike three!”

They had been so focused on flirting that Sapphire had forgotten to hit the ball; Team Human received their first out.

“Whoops,” Joy S said.

* * *

 

The innings progressed, and the game remained neck-and-neck, thanks in part to how Ruby and Sapphire were unable to concentrate on the game, resulting in errors on Sapphire’s part and a lack thereof on Ruby’s.

“This is all _your_ fault!” Anger S yelled at Joy S. “Your emotional inputs about Ruby are distracting Sapphire!”

“Well, how am I supposed to ignore something so cute?” Joy S retorted.

                Things weren’t going any better in Sapphire’s mind.

“Why is this so difficult?” Sadness R sobbed. “We were able to keep apart in Keystone, no problem!”

“Yeah, but that was because Ruby and Sapphire were mad at each other,” Disgust R said.

“That’s it!” Joy R said. “Anger, think up a reason to get mad at Sapphire!”

“Okay,” Anger R said. “Let’s see… A-ha! I hate that she came up with the idea to split up!”

“Not what I had in mind.”

* * *

 

It was the bottom of the ninth, and Team Human was down by one with two outs. Lapis was on second, so they needed a home run in order to win; unfortunately, Sapphire was up at bat.

Steven called a time out so he could talk to the batter and catcher. “Listen, you two. I know it's hard being separated, but we have to keep them out of the barn or they're gonna find Peridot, remember?”

“He’s right,” Sadness R said. “We have to get a grip. For our friend.”

“Except it’s not on Ruby; it’s on Sapphire,” Fear R said. “I hope she’ll be able to do it.”

“Of course she will,” Joy R said. “We know Sapphire. We know her emotions. They’ll find a way to help her through this.”

Two pitches were thrown; two strikes were caught. “Come on, I know you can do it,” Ruby said. “Just look at the ball.”

“I’m trying, but all I want to look at is you.”

“Don't worry, you can look at me when you're running for home.”

“And she’ll look so proud of Ruby,” Joy S said. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“So we’ll make that her motivation,” Disgust S said. “I mean, Peridot’s okay, but Sapphire’s the one we _really_ love. So we’ll concentrate and hit a home run, utterly decimating the other team! _For love_!”

“Alright!” Anger S yelled, hand on a lever. “I’m gonna give Sapphire a blast of _fierce determination_!”

So when the ball was pitched for the third time, Sapphire connected, gripping the bat so tightly that it began to freeze over, swinging so hard that the ball disappeared into the sky.

                “Yes!” Joy S cried. Sapphire rounded the bases and headed for home, leaping into the arms of the awaiting catcher.

“We did it!” Joy R yelled. All of Garnet’s emotions laughed and cheered. Joy S and Joy R embraced and spun around—until they suddenly recognized what had happened.

“Uh-oh,” Fear S said.

The Homeworld Rubies, realizing that they’d been tricked, fused into one huge form, poised to fight the others.

“Wait!” Peridot yelled, stumbling out of the barn. “It's me you're after, right? I'm not gonna stand by and let my friends fight my battles!”

“Sacrificing herself to save her friends?” Sadness R said. “How noble!”

“We probably could have fought them off,” Disgust S said.

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“Are you the Peridot assigned to the failed Earth mission?” the Ruby fusion bellowed. “Where is Jasper?”

“Wait,” Fear R said, “they’re looking for Jasper? Not Peridot?”

“Makes sense,” Disgust S said. “She _does_ have a tendency to think herself more important than she actually is.”

“Um, we know where Jasper is,” Peridot told the Ruby fusion.

“WELL?”

“Neptune!” Steven interjected. “She’s on the planet Neptune!”

Everyone fell silent.

Disgust S shook her head. “There’s no way she’s going to actually fall for—“

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” the fusion said. They split apart, entered their ship, and departed.

“Man, Rubies are dumb,” Amethyst said.

Joy S placed her arm around her counterpart’s shoulders, nuzzling her cheek with her own. “Not all of them,” she said.


	12. Gem Heist

The Crystal Gems entered the space station—Pink Diamond’s human zoo—where Steven’s dad had been taken to. In the hangar, stationed in front of the door that lead to the rest of the station, were two Amethyst guards.

“Of course,” Anger S grumbled. “It can never be simple, can it?”

“Well, time to fight,” Anger R said, cracking his knuckles.

“Er, I’d prefer keeping that as a last resort,” Fear S said.

“Besides, we don’t know if they’re actually hostile,” Sadness R said, placing a hand on Anger R’s shoulder. “They might just be like Ruby was; just a grunt following orders because she didn’t know anything else.”

“So then how are we supposed to get past them?” Disgust R asked.

“By playing the roles they expect from us,” Fear S said. “Steven will pretend to be a regular human and Sapphire will be delivering her; Ruby and Amethyst will be her muscle and Pearl will be her Pearl.”

“Are you sure?” Fear R said. “Because remember the last time we tried this. We could barely stand being apart.”

“It will be tough,” Sadness S said, “but what other choice do we have?”

“Don’t worry,” Joy S said. “We won’t have to be split up for very long! We can fuse again once we get past the guards.”

Ruby and Sapphire unfused and informed the others of the plan.

“Is this really going to work?” Pearl wondered.

“Er…” Fear S scrolled through scenario after scenario in her future vision, each possibility ending with their ruse discovered and having to fight back. “I don’t think it is…”

“Whatever!” Joy S said. “Sapphire’s future vision is a useful tool, but the actual future is unpredictable! She might see one thing and wind up falling in love with a Ruby and permanently fusing with her!”

“Or wind up playing a baseball game against her,” Disgust S remarked.

“Exactly! So let’s go and change the future!”

The group exited the ship and approached the guards. “State your purpose,” one of them said.

“I’m here to make a delivery to the human zoo,” Sapphire said.

“Bad news; the human zoo shut down,” said the guard, leaning in close to Steven, “which means we’ll just have to throw you in space.”

“Er, we’d better get Steven out of here,” said Fear R. “And figure out where Greg could have been taken, if not here…”

But the guards started laughing, revealing that it was a joke.

“Oh, of course they were messing with us,” Anger R said. “Why wouldn’t they? That’s what _our_ Amethyst would do in this situation.”

“Sapphire would have realized that right away,” Sadness R sighed. “It’s such a disadvantage not being Garnet; I miss it already.”

A Holly Blue Agate, presumably the one in charge of the zoo, emerge from within. Upon seeing Sapphire, she kicked and scolded the guards for not informing her right away.

“Well, their joke was kind of mean,” Sadness S said, “but she’s still treating them way too harshly.”

“You’ll have to forgive them,” Holly Blue laughed. “They’re from Earth.” She made the guards apologize.

“No use dwelling on the past,” Sapphire said. “I've brought a new human for the collection.”

“How unprecedented! Nothing for millennia, and then two humans back to back!” Holly Blue said. “I'm sure Blue Diamond would want to thank you personally, but you just missed her.”

“Thank goodness,” Fear R said, sighing in relief. “Can you imagine us trying to stay composed in front of Blue Diamond? We’d give the whole thing away in seconds!”

Holly Blue was about to order one of her guards to put Steven into the zoo, but Sapphire intervened, asking for a tour.

“I would be honored!” Holly Blue said, and after making Amethyst stay to guard the door, the group entered the facility.

“Does your Pearl always walk next to you?” Holly Blue said suspiciously.

Pearl chuckled nervously and moved behind to her proper position.

“Ugh,” Disgust S said. “I’d forgotten just how awful Homeworld is.”

They continued down the corridor until they reached a closed door. “Is she going to do it or should I say something?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Fear S remembered. “On Homeworld, Pearls are expected to open the doors for their superiors.”

“Yeah, _really_ forgotten how awful they were,” said Disgust S.

“You are so patient with her,” Holly Blue remarked as Pearl opened the door. “How do you do it?”

“As a Sapphire, I know it will happen eventually,” Sapphire responded.

“I feel really bad for Pearl,” Sadness S said. “She doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. No one does.”

Sapphire made a point to whisper her condolences to Pearl as she passed by.

They continued the tour, with Blue Holly explaining the faculties.

“It's tragic that Pink Diamond's existence in this universe ended up being so finite, but what a selfless act for Blue Diamond to step forward and spend her own time and energy preserving this place in Pink Diamond's memory. It's a real testament to Blue Diamond's merciful and giving nature. Don't you think?”

“Er, of course,” Sapphire said.

“Ick. Just _agreeing_ with praise for Blue Diamond feels wrong,” Disgust S said.

“I’m more worried with how Ruby’s taking it,” Sadness S said.

Ruby wasn’t taking it well.

“ _Merciful_? _Giving_?” yelled Anger R. “If Ruby was fused with Sapphire, I would… I…”

“Calm down, Anger!” Sadness R said. “We have to play our parts. And if that means standing idly by when others compliment a tyrant, we just have to deal with it.”

Steven, anxious to rescue his dad, made an outburst, which Holly Blue dismissed as random noises.

“So, how do you get into the zoo?” Sapphire asked.

“Excellent question, your Grand Clarity!” Blue Holly said. “On the rare occasion that we would need to enter the containment area, we would do so via this service door.”

She indicated the door.

Steven whispered to Ruby that they needed a distraction.

“Right! Distraction!” Fear R said. “We need to think of a distraction!”

“Explosions are distracting!” Joy R suggested.

“Explosion!” Ruby shouted.

“I think we’ll need a bit more than that,” Disgust R snarked.

“Hold on,” Fear R said. “I think if we prompt the memory of the Roaming Eye…”

“I just remembered I left the gravity engine idling,” Ruby continued. “Sorry, my Sapphire. I'm so forgetful and disposable.”

“What?” Sadness S said, tearing up a bit. “She’s not disposable! She shouldn’t say such things!”

“No, wait,” Fear S said. “She’s just playing her role! This is a ruse to get Holly Blue out of the way!”

“That’s our Ruby,” Joy S said with a smile. “So resourceful and dependable.”

Sapphire thus played along, continuing with a story about how Ruby’s supposed carelessness put the ship in danger of overheating and blowing up; she therefore had Holly Rose accompany her back to the ship while the others stayed to watch over the human.

As soon as they were out of sight, Anger R slammed down on her controls, allowing Ruby to unleash a rant of frustration about Blue Diamond.

“She’s a shatterer! She yelled at Sapphire, she hates fusion… and _love_ …”

“I know, Ruby,” said Steven, “but we don’t have much time! We have to open this door!”

“Got a point,” Disgust R said. “Better get it done before they come back.”

But despite her best efforts, Pearl was unable to figure out the control pad.

“But if our hacker’s of no use,” Fear R said, “how can we get into the zoo?”

“With force!” Anger R stated.

So as Pearl continued fiddling with the control pad, Ruby and Steven attempted to knock the door down—but to no avail.

“Well, that didn’t work either,” Sadness R said. “Would have been nice if it had, though.”

“I am so glad we’re almost back!” Sapphire loudly announced, warning her friends of Holly Blue’s return. “I was really enjoying the tour!”

“I wish we could have stalled her longer,” Sadness S said, “but there wasn’t really any way to do so without being too obvious.”

“Hopefully, they were able to get Steven into the zoo,” Joy S said.

Steven, however, was still with the others. The door remained closed, and judging from the scorch marks on it, they had been unable to open it, even by force.

“What is going on here?” Holly Blue demanded as she spied the marks.

“Uh-oh,” Fear S said. “I’m not sure they can come up with a reasonable explanation…”

“Maybe if Sapphire berates them, she’ll accept that they were just being nuisances?” Disgust S suggested.

“I don’t feel right scolding them, though,” said Sadness S. “Even for pretend.”

“This might be the point where we have to resort to fighting,” Fear S said.

Holly Blue addressed the others. “Did you see the Amethyst that did this?” she asked, attributing the marks to her own staff.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Fear S said.

“Yeah, but what are we going to do now?” Anger S asked.

They didn’t have time to ponder this as two guards hurried up to announce that Blue Diamond would be arriving soon.

“Surely, Blue Diamond would want to thank you personally for this special delivery, your Grand Clarity,” Holly Blue told Sapphire.

“So _that’s_ what we’re going to do!” Anger S exclaimed. “Meet with one of the cruelest entities in the galaxy and be forced to kowtow to her!”

“Why did I suggest espionage?” Fear S wailed. “Why couldn’t we have just have forced our way in?”

The emotions of Ruby’s mind were in a similar state of panic.

“It would be so hard for Sapphire, having to face her Diamond again,” Sadness R said.

“Welp, this heist couldn’t have gone any worse,” Disgust R said.

“Well, don't just stand there, you useless chunks of earth!” Blue Holly yelled at the guards. “Make yourself useful and escort that human to the assimilation bay!”

“You just had to say something!” Anger R yelled at Disgust R.

“Separated from Steven… from Amethyst… from _Sapphire_ …” Fear R said.

In Sapphire’s mind, Fear S was also quite upset. “We came here to get Steven’s dad _out_ , not get Steven put _in_!”

Sapphire attempted to dissuade Holly Blue by protesting about the tour, but the zoo manager was too concerned with making a good impression for Blue Diamond to listen. So she, Ruby, and Pearl watched helplessly as Steven was carried off.

Joy R looked around. “Well… at least he got into the zoo?”


	13. That Will Be All

Hours passed in the station as Ruby, Sapphire, and Pearl slowly stewed under the watch of Holly Blue. This was now the longest time Garnet had spent split up in millennia, even longer than when they had had their fight at the motel. But, unlike during the baseball game, they had no trouble; they were much too worried for that. Both their minds had Fear in charge, sending them a constant stream of anxiety over everything. They were worried about Steven and his father, trapped inside the zoo; about Amethyst, stretched beyond her limits for too long, under the watch of fully-grown guards; about themselves, and their meeting with Blue Diamond, and how they she might recognize them even after all this time, or else they might accidentally give themselves away from being out of practice.

An alert sounded. The visitors whipped their heads up at the noise.

“No need to worry; that just means there’s an issue in the zoo that needs to be dealt with,” Holly Blue explained. “Perhaps the newest humans had trouble integrating with the others.” She turned to a guard. “Take care of whatever it is!” she ordered. “Everything must be in order when Blue Diamond arrives!”

“Er, is this bad?” Joy S wondered.

“Hard to say,” Fear S said. “Steven and his father might have fallen into danger… or perhaps the alert is simply them trying to escape. And for the guards to deal with it, they would have to open the door, providing an exit for them… but then again, they would have to somehow slip past the very same guards who are using it to enter.”

“So many unknown variables!” Anger S yelled. “What’s the use of having access to future vision if we can’t actually use it to find out what’s going on?”

As Blue Diamond’s arrival became imminent, Holly Blue wanted to ensure that everything was prepared. She therefore made her way to the Quartz barracks, her guests in tow.

“Hold on,” Fear S said. “Now that we have a better idea of where we’re going, the scenarios on our future vision will be more accurate.” She pulled several up. “See? There’s the barracks, and… Amethyst’s with them? And she’s not even shapeshifted?”

“But it looks like she’s getting along with the others,” Joy S said. “Of course! They’re her sisters and cousins from the Earth Kindergartens! No wonder they’re so friendly to her.”

“Holly Blue’s constant abuse probably helped as well,” Anger S added.

They reached the barracks. “I’ll just be a moment,” Holly Blue said, turning to face Sapphire as Pearl opened the door. And it was lucky she had turned, because there, scurrying to hide, were Steven and his father.

Joy S gasped. “They escaped!” she cheered. “Amethyst must have told the guards about them, and they rescued them when the alarm sounded!”

“What are they wearing?” Disgust S said.

“Who cares? For the first time since we got here, things are going in our favor!”

“Right,” said Sadness S. “Now all we have to do is survive our meeting with Blue Diamond.”

Joy S frowned. “You’re a bit of a downer, you know that?”

As the guards scrambled to their stations, Ruby, Sapphire, and their guide headed to the meeting chamber.

“Okay, okay, we’re just a group of undercover rebels heading to meet with one of the three most powerful Gems in the universe,” Fear R said, breathing slowly to prevent herself from hyperventilating.

“Well, it’s a good thing that Ruby’s nervousness could be chalked up to being overwhelmed by the majesty of her ruler,” Disgust R said, “because she doesn’t really have the best poker face.”

Pearl opened the door, revealing the chamber beyond where Blue Diamond stood—with Yellow Diamond beside her.

Fear R fainted.

“Seriously?” Anger R said as Sadness tried to revive Fear. “Every single thing that could possible go awry with this plan went awry!”

“Well, considering that, we’ve actually been quite lucky that we haven’t been discovered yet,” Joy R said, trying to inject a bit of optimism.

“But how long is _that_ going to last?” Fear R murmured, opening her eyes.

“You'll be pleased to know that your Sapphire has completed your special delivery,” Holly Blue said.

“What special delivery?” Blue Diamond said suspiciously.

Fear S whimpered. “Why couldn’t we have been caught before this? At least then, we might have had a chance to fight back. But here? In the presence of not one, but _two_ diamonds? We wouldn’t stand a chance!”

The ground beneath Sapphire’s dress began to grow ice crystals.

“She’s freezing up,” Fear R said. “And why wouldn’t she? Blue Diamond knows she didn’t send us for another human; Blue Holly will realize that Sapphire lied to her about Steven.”

“Oh, what her emotions must be going through,” said Sadness R. “If we were fused, we would be able to comfort her and help her through this…”

“We still can,” Joy R said. “We just need to remind her that Ruby’s here with her, that she loves her. She might not be able to show it much, given the circumstances, but even a small token should help…”

Ruby, taking care not to be seen doing so, took ahold of Sapphire’s hand.

“ _Ruby,_ ” Joy S whispered. She turned to Fear. “Keep it together! We just have to come up with a halfway plausible explanation to get out of this mess, then we can grab the others, sneak back to the ship, and finally be able to fuse with Ruby again.”

“Right,” said Fear S. “Just keep calm, and we’ll be Garnet again.”

Sapphire claimed that she foresaw that Blue Diamond would desire more humans for the zoo and acted accordingly; the Diamonds seemed to accept this and dismissed them.

Joy R sighed in relief as the two gems joined up with the others. “That was a close one!”

“We still have to sneak Steven and Greg out past Holly Blue,” Fear R said.

“Seems like she’s too busy basking in the glory of her idols to pay attention to her surroundings,” Disgust R noted.

Indeed, Holly Blue gushed about what an honor it was to be visited by two Diamonds all the way back to the Eye, not noticing the two humans at all—at least, not until they were almost in the ship.

Disgust S groaned. “ _So_ close…”

“What is the meaning of this?” Holly Blue exclaimed. “Why are these two outside the containment area?”

“Um…” Fear S glanced at her fellow emotions. “Can anyone think of an excuse?”

But there was no need; Holly Blue blamed the incompetence of the guards. “Well,” she said, summoning a whip, “if you want something done right, you just do it yourself.”

“You know,” Anger R said, “I think we’ve spent enough time apart.”

Ruby and Sapphire held hands and fused; Garnet caught Holly Blue’s whip, which the other Crystal Gems used to tie her up.

“All right!” Anger R said. “Now she’s going to get the beat-down she’s been asking for!”

“No, wait,” Joy S said. “I have a better idea.”

So instead of using the massive gauntlet she had summoned to hit her, Garnet knocked Holly Blue down with her other hand.

Anger R gave Joy S a high-five.

“I'll report you to the Diamonds!” Holly Blue yelled. “All of you! You'll all be shattered!”

Pearl leaned down. “You're _really_ gonna tell the Diamonds that you allowed a band of traitorous rebels to infiltrate a highly secure facility and escape from right under your careful watch? Doesn't sound like a wise thing to do, Holly Blue. So do yourself a favor and keep your mouth _shut_. That will be all.”

Joy R burst out laughing. “Wow, that was _amazing_!”

“Yeah,” Disgust S said. “Pearl’s definitely better than just a door-opener.”

“We did it,” Fear S said to her counterpart. “It was nerve-racking, and even frustrating at times, but we did it. And now we’re on our way back to Earth with Greg. We’re all together again.”

Fear R looked at her fellow emotions, both from Ruby and Sapphire, as they caught up after their time apart. “Yes. Yes we are.”


End file.
